


venatio amoris

by WelcomeToTheBadlands



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bounty Hunters, Angst and Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Feral Behavior, Fluff and Angst, Mandalorian Culture, Soft Ben Solo, Virgin Kylo Ren, Virgin Rey (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-02-16 05:56:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 23,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21502996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WelcomeToTheBadlands/pseuds/WelcomeToTheBadlands
Summary: The Resistance is desperate to get the upper hand in the ongoing war between them and the First Order. Rey's a bounty hunter that's exceptionally good at her job, but expensive. The Resistance puts out a hit to bring in Kylo Ren, dead or alive. Rey answered the call.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 23
Kudos: 117





	1. The Target

**Author's Note:**

> By the way, if you expect this to be super angsty in the beginning, it's not going to be. The beginning of this au takes place a few months before Kylo Ren would find Lor San Tekka, and in a moment of weakness, he starts to doubt the Supreme Leader and misses home. This is when Rey swoops in to capitalize on that bounty. Don't worry, there's angst that's going to come in later in the fic. But for now, just crack, action, and some fluff.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Resistance is desperate to get an upper hand before the First Order does anything drastic. So, they hire a bounty hunter.

There is a legend in the galaxy. 

There is a girl. 

Not heroic like Luke Skywalker, but powerful. 

A Mandalorian. A bounty hunter. 

Poe Dameron is the first one to suggest to Leia that to take out the First Order, they have to start with Kylo Ren and work their way up. Bounty hunters are great at tracking people and the Resistance needed all the help they could get, so they needed to hire a bounty hunter. 

Leia didn’t like the idea at first, and no one knew why. 

Eventually, she got desperate. “Okay,” She told him, “but you need to make sure he’s brought in alive. A force user that we could eventually turn to our side could be useful.” Poe nodded, assuring her that once he put the hit out there, he’d make sure that he hired a hunter that would bring him in alive. 

She hoped that he was telling the truth. 

_

Target #317A5 liked to frequent Chalmun’s cantina. Which made it rather easy for her to track him down. Rey wondered why criminals liked to be in places so open, it made her job way too easy. Which on some days was good, but on the days where she wanted a bit of fun, it wasn’t that great.

Today was one of those days where she was bored out of her mind. She had rounded up three of her targets already and this was her last one. He didn’t even put up a fight, she walked in and everyone went silent. The man saw her and just walked straight to her. “Mandalorian, your reputation precedes you.” Is what he told her. 

Rey rolled her eyes and told him to get a move on back to the ship. Presumably, he was more interested in self-preservation than his pride, which Rey can’t blame him for. She would probably have shot him if he had put up any sort of fight whatsoever. “Go up the ship,” She told him.

“Do I have to?” Rey put her hand on her blaster and the man turned right around and started to walk up the ramp like she wanted him to. _That’s what I thought,_ she thought to herself. It didn’t take long to get him wrapped up in carbonite and the silence in her ship surrounded her. 

Once she got done, she was commed to come and get another commission. He wanted to meet in a neutral place. Takodana. Two days. Rey started her way to Takodana, remembering Maz’s tavern and how Maz had instantly read her without her ever even taking her helmet off. Since then she was never too eager to return. 

Still, money was money and although she got a good commission from her last job, it wasn’t enough to sustain her needs for more than a couple of months. The ride was not long, but it was boring. Rey was used to it being that way. There were these long lulls between bounties were all she could hear was her breathing and the mechanical sounds of the ships. 

_ 

Poe Dameron wasn’t sure what he was expecting. All he knew was that the one bounty hunter that he was looking for was expensive, but she was good at her job and she had never failed before. That was just the kind of thing that they needed at the moment. 

The question was, would they be able to afford it? Maz had welcomed Poe into her bar like she did all members of the Resistance. She seemed to know what he was there to do though, which made her stay a healthy distance away from him after serving him. 

That was fine. 

He was a little bit nervous about doing this as well. 

General Organa’s words echoed in his head, _as long as the bounty for him states that I want him alive, then fine we can hire a bounty hunter. Just make sure that we have the budget for that right now._ Poe was pretty sure that they didn’t have the budget for that right now, but he knew that the Republic would probably be willing to spot them some credits to get the job done. 

The thing was, Kylo Ren was dangerous. Poe and Finn had barely made it out of the First Order alive. Flashes of pain were still seared into his memory from when Ren had used to the Force to torture him. 

Kylo Ren was powerful. 

So, he changed the bounty slightly. 

Dead or Alive. 

Then it would be easier to get rid of their Kylo Ren problem. 

_

Rey had done so many bounties before, but she never worked for the First Order or the Republic directly. She was not the kind of person to get tangled up in politics, this pointless war that took thousands of lives was not the sort of drama that she wanted to get mixed up in, but the price tag on the bounty that was proposed was — well — enough. 

Rey found him in the bar that he said that he would be in. Poe Dameron was a headstrong pilot who looked too handsome for his own good, and his ego was probably bigger than the room that they were in at the moment. She could tell when he greeted her. Everyone else in the bar had gone silent except for him. 

He was loud. 

She immediately hated him. 

He started out talking way too much, Rey wondered if he’d ever hired a bounty hunter before. She was pretty sure that he hadn’t by the way that he acted. “Who’s the target?” She asked, disinterested in mingling with this man. 

“Kylo Ren.” 

“You want me to capture Kylo Ren and bring him to a Resistance base? Can’t that man rip things apart with his mind?” 

“I know, lofty thing to ask but we’re willing to offer a hefty sum and you can bring him in dead if you need to. That might be a lot easier than bringing him in alive. We just need him out of the way for us to get an advantage.” 

“You want me to capture or kill Kylo Ren, putting a target on my back and potentially endangering my life against the First Order?” 

“Yes?” 

“I want double and I’ll do it.” 

“Done.” 

“Half payment now.” 

“A quarter payment.” 

“A third is the minimum for me to be able to start,” 

“Fine, a third.” Rey gave him her holopad to transfer the credits to her name. He did, and then Rey got up. 

“Wait, don’t you need a bounty puck?” 

“I assume you want this to be confidential, right?” 

“Yes,” 

“Then save the bounty puck, the First Order’s ostentatious and flashy. It’ll be easy to find him,” 

  
  
  
  
_

  
  


Kylo Ren rarely had downtime. At one point, he had been okay with it. Now, he was just tired. Tired and grateful that he could drink without the First Order breathing down his neck. Today was a sacred day. A day where he didn’t wear the mask and no one knew who he was. It was a bit ridiculous, being nervous to just order some whiskey in fear that someone might recognize him. 

Kylo quieted his nerves and found a place where he could drink in quiet. He wished that the rest of his day was that uneventful. 

_ 

_Rey became familiar with awful men from a very young age. Not at the fault of her parents, they tried to protect her. They couldn’t, though. This galaxy was broken. There were too many bad people in the galaxy._

_

It didn’t take Rey long to find Kylo. Longer than the last one, yes, but not that long at all. He was a fairly obvious man to follow. She just followed the trail of destruction and eventually, it led her to another bar. Why did she end up doing all of her arrests in bars? She had no idea. It always seemed like shady characters all ended up in the same seedy places. Rey ended up on one of the sister planets to Jakku.

The only thing she could say about this planet was, ‘at least it’s not Jakku’ and that wasn’t saying much. It was hotter than sin outside and the wind kicked sand up all around her. Rey didn’t want to have to walk all the way to the cantina from where her ship was parked, just on the edge of the village settlement. 

Rey was glad that her ship was big enough to carry a sand cycle on it, it made getting to the bar a lot easier, although it did raise some eyebrows. She didn’t really care. Raised eyebrows never stopped her from doing her job. In fact, a lot of the times she welcomed more attention. It spiced things up. 

The same thing happened when she walked through the almost saloon-like entrance to this cantina. There was a low murmur throughout the crowd of aliens and humans alike that were drinking their lives away. Most of them went quiet. 

‘

She went straight to the bartender, who was staring at her looking like he was about to rat anyone Rey needed out, at a bit of a fee. Rey put ten FO credits down on the bar, just because of the irony that was paying for information on Kylo Ren with his own organization’s money. “I’m looking for Kylo Ren,” She said, “have any information on him? He was last seen landing on this planet.” Some of the murmurs were back, and just then a large man cloaked in black got up, heading for the door. 

The bartender just pointed to him, “Hey, you!” 

The man broke out into a run. 

That was definitely Kylo Ren. 

This was going to be fun.

_

The first thing Kylo thought when he saw a bounty hunter walk into the cantina was, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if she was here to fulfill a bounty on me?’. It was almost as if the universe was laughing at him when she said, “I’m looking on information about Kylo Ren.” Part of his slightly tipsy brain was saying that he should just sit there and let her take him in without a fight—because at this point if he didn’t leave the First Order now, he was going to be dead in a year. The other part of Kylo knew that if he left with her without a fight, and Snoke found out, the repercussions would be just as bad as the ones waiting for him at the hands of the Resistance. 

So, he ran.

He ran knowing that there was a good chance that he would get cornered and killed now that he ran. 

He did so anyway. 

“Hey, you!” He ran faster, pushing past people that were trying to get inside the cantina and taking a left. He heard the sound of an engine purring to life and chanced a look behind him. 

Of course, she would have a sand cycle. She’d catch him in about five minutes. Kylo kept running, barely missing a blaster bolt and turning again, running straight into a dead in. Okay, she’d catch him in about two minutes. Kylo turned to get a better look at the person that was probably going to kill him. 

She wasn’t very big, which was different for a bounty hunter. She was a Mandalorian and her armor was almost as dark as Kylo’s cowl, but there were gold accents that almost glittered in the sunlight. Kylo had to say that he appreciated the fact that he was being hunted down by someone that at least had some fashion sense. 

Kylo reached for his lightsaber but this girl was quicker, with one swift motion she drew her blaster and shot the lightsaber off of his belt. “Mother—” 

“If you don’t struggle, I won’t shoot you.” She said. Kylo reached for his lightsaber. Wrong move. She pulled another gun and shot him. 

_

She shot Kylo Ren with a stun gun fifteen times before he went down. She had to admit that she thought that was impressive. Now came the part she was not looking forward to. This man was huge and now he was unconscious and weighed as much as a fallen bantha.

She ended up just grabbing onto his arm and dragged him through the sand until they reached her cycle. The back was wide enough to stuff him in, thank goodness. Rey put her arms under his shoulders and lifted, only succeeding in accidentally knocking his head against the side of the sand cycle. Sounded like it hurt.

"Bounty hunter! Stop right there." _Stormtroopers. Right on time._

"Sorry, boys. Gotta dash." Rey jumped on the sand cycle right as the blaster bolts started to fly past her. Rey had run from Stormtroopers before. It wasn’t a new experience to run from the First Order, because despite the fact that she did not work for political parties, she and Han Solo used to work bounties together in Rey’s early days. Before the First Order had really reared its ugly head and Han had to go back to help the Resistance, and stormtroopers were less of a threat. 

She was met with a barrage of stormtroopers running after her, and she took a few sharp turns. They were unprepared for the fact that someone was going to successfully abduct Kylo Ren, no doubt. There was no air barrage or anything. Just ten to fifteen stormtroopers running after her and trying to shoot her down.


	2. Edgy Asshole

_ When Kylo Ren was still on the light side, he was conflicted. When he turned to the dark, he grew even more conflicted than he had been before. Snoke told him that he was special, but he needed training, and that no one else loved him. Even though training hurt and he was lonely, Kylo Ren stayed. But when he had moments to himself, when he got drunk, there were strange moments of clarity where he would see that he needed to get as far away as he could from the First Order.  _

_ But how do you do that? If Snoke caught on to the fact that Kylo ever had these thoughts, he would be punished, and that was a worse fate to him. One that he feared. He resigned himself to serving the Order, eventually, he would believe that he was doing the right thing.  _

_ It would be too late for him and he would be strong in the dark side.  _

_

Kylo woke with a splitting headache, in a ship that he didn’t remember getting on. Then he remembered the bounty hunter. The one with horns and black and gold armor. He wondered where she had gone to. He couldn’t feel the Force, which was the first thing that he tried to reach out to. He looked down. Force Dampening cuffs.  _ That’s fucking great.  _ He was alone in the pilot’s bay, which was something that he found extremely stupid.  _ He could just get up and go —  _ A shock sent him back into his seat. The bounty hunter walked into the pilot’s bay. “Where am I?” The bounty hunter didn’t say anything. 

“I asked you a question,” 

No answer. 

“Can you talk?” 

“Can you shut up?” So she could talk. 

“Who are you working for? I haven’t seen a Mandalorian in a long time.” Again. No reaction. “Oh, come on. I know you know how to talk, so humor me. There’s a bounty on my head, at least tell me who put it on my head.” He already had a guess. 

“Leia Organa,” Kylo swallowed hard. He didn’t think that his mother was willing to set a bounty for him to be brought back to the base, dead or alive. Part of him had still hoped that she would have some sort of faith in him, but no. 

He was a monster, he didn’t deserve that. 

“What’s your name?” He asked. 

No reaction again. Kylo watched her mess with the control panel. “I have to pee,” He told her. “Can I get up or are you going to tase me again?” He didn’t trust not getting a reaction from her then either. She was probably going to tase him again, and not really wanting that he waited for her to get up and grab the side of his arm, yanking him up. “You know, for someone so tiny, you’re really strong.” 

She tilted her head to the side, and Kylo found himself wondering what she looked like under that Mandalorian armor. Under the helmet with small horns on the side. “If you’re going to be taking me to my certain death I think that I should at least know your name.” She hit a button and the door to the ‘fresher open. “Are you going to give me privacy to take a piss?” 

To his surprise, she actually does. The door closes and he’s by himself. When he first fought his way into the Knights of Ren and started to prove himself to Snoke, they wouldn’t even give him that privacy. It was weird — being grateful for human decency — especially from a bounty hunter who was certainly going to deliver him to his certain death. “Are you done?” 

He zipped up and washed up, part of him wondered if the dampening cuffs would malfunction when they were wet. He tried and nothing happened. When nothing happened and he still couldn’t feel the Force, he turned. “Yeah, thanks.” She opened the door, and for some reason, he imagined whoever was under that helmet rolling her eyes. 

She took him by the arm again and started to yank him back towards the bay. “You going to tell me your name?” 

“I don’t see why that matters,” 

Yes, more conversation. “Well, I have to have a name to call you. Guess I could just call you Mandalorian, but  _ The Mandalorian  _ is already a nickname that’s been done before. So what’s your name?” 

“Do you ever stop talking?” 

This was actually the most that Kylo had ever talked, but he knew that he was annoying the bounty hunter and he enjoyed it. “What, you don’t like the heavenly sound of my voice?” 

“My name is Rey, are you happy?” Rey. Rey. That name sounded like something someone would name a girl who ran through fields of flowers with sunshine at her back. Not a bounty hunter that shot Kylo fifteen times. 

“Oh, yeah. Very. So, Rey, what led you into the bounty hunty business?” 

“When I was told about the bounty on you, I was told you were an edgy emo asshole who didn’t talk very much. So why do you insist on giving me a headache?” Ouch. 

“Was my mother the one that called me the edgy emo asshole?” 

“No,” 

“You must’ve met with Poe Dameron. He has a problem with anyone that’s better than him.” 

“Right now, you’re on the same level as him to me.” 

“ _ Ouch,  _ I don’t know whether I should be offended or amused by your insult.” 

“Either way, it’s no skin off my back. Now, be a good boy and sit down before I decide to bring you in cold.” 

That was another question that he had. “Why haven’t you?” There was no answer again, and Kylo tried to reach out through the Force to read this girl’s mind, but the inhibitors seemed to know what he wanted to do and started to shock him. He gritted his teeth and stopped, sitting back in his seat. 

Kylo tried to ask her questions a few more times. Asking her if she knew where the Resistance base was. If she knew what they were going to do to him when she brought him in. Saying that the First Order was probably going to find the two of them and have them both killed before she could even get in touch with the Resistance again.

If any of those things intimidated or annoyed her she showed no reaction, probably courtesy of the armor she wore. While he was glad that his captor wasn’t prone to bursts of anger, no reaction at all meant Kylo was left with nothing to listen to but the sound of his own voice. This was going to be a long ride. 


	3. Chapter 3

There was something about being around this bounty hunter that made him feel more subdued than he should. He wished that he could put his finger on it, but he wasn’t really sure what it was to begin with. This girl was fiery, and she didn’t trust him further than she could throw him. Which was smart of her, because Kylo Ren was the type of person that didn’t deserve the luxury of being trusted by anyone. Rey watched him with an intent eye, but she still gave him more freedom than Snoke ever did. He was allowed to sleep without supervision, he could walk the ship except for two rooms that were always locked, and he could eat whatever he wanted of the rations supply that she had. “I am so hungry,” He said.

“That is the fifth time that you’ve said that,”

“I thought that you didn’t hear me, considering the fact that I’ve said it four times before and you didn’t respond.” After that, Rey sighed and went back to being silent. That became a recurring theme for them. She was silent for three more days before he heard he talk again.

“We’re going to stop.” Rey told him. “Get some fresh air, stock up on supplies. I will let you outside if you promise not to be an idiot.” Even though the bounty hunter had a mask, he had an idea that she had some sort of annoyed expression at him.

“Yeah, sure. No being an idiot. But can I have my lightsaber—a lot of people want to kill me and I get the feeling now that you pissed off the First Order, a lot of people want to kill you too.” Again, he couldn’t see her face but the eye roll was almost audible.

__

Rey was going to go insane.

This man would not shut up.

And yet, when she thought about freezing him in carbonite, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She heard him when he was asleep sometimes. The soft cries for his mother and father, cries of regret, and the chattering of teeth. It made her heart hurt, but she tried her best to ignore it.

She did not give him his lightsaber back, and she made sure she turned up the voltage on his shock collar before the two of them left. He said something about finally getting some fresh air and started asking her a whole lot of questions.

“Do you get bored not talking to people?” She didn’t answer that. “What do you do when you’re not bounty hunting?” She didn’t answer that. “Why haven’t you killed me yet?” She didn’t answer that. “Where are we going?” She didn’t answer that. “What do you think the Resistance is going to do to me?” She didn’t answer any of his questions.

She would be lying if she said that she didn’t get a little bit of pleasure out of annoying him. There were few joys in life but she soon found out that staying silent when Kylo Ren got increasingly more and more agitated was one of them. Eventually, he got tired of talking and the two of them ended up silent as she took them into a bar.

Of course, everyone was looking at them. “Order some food, then we leave.”

“Do you want something?”

“I’m fine,”

“Do you even eat? I’ve never seen you eat.” Instead of teasing, she recognizes actual concern in his eyes. She ignores it.

__

Kylo doesn’t know what to think of this woman.

She doesn’t like him.

He knows that. But there’s something about the way she’s watching him that makes him _want_ her to like him, even though she was delivering him to certain death. He closed his eyes and drank some whiskey. He could sense a tension building up around him. He stared at his soup and ate when someone stuck their hand on his shoulder.

That was the one thing that he really didn’t like. Men touching him. “What do you want?” He said through gritted teeth, suddenly wondering where Rey was. He spoke a language that Ren didn’t understand. But he caught the words, ‘First Order’ and ‘bounty’. Suddenly Rey was pushing the man off of him and Kylo went back to drinking the whiskey that was given to him.

Someone shouted, “Bitch.”

“She’s a Mandalorian assassin, show her a little bit of respect.” He called out when first blaster shot was fired. He sighed, staring into the bottom of his drink. He really had no idea what was going on, but he knew that whatever fight someone was about to pick was going to go very badly for them. Someone flew over the bar and hit one of the kegs, bursting it open and letting the whiskey spill forth.

“A little help would be great,”

“I don’t have my lightsaber,” Kylo shrugged. “And I can’t use the Force or I’ll get shocked. You’re on your own.”

“I can see why so many people want to kill you,”

“Ouch,” Kylo had to say that he was taking much more pleasure out of it than he should have been. It was almost hilarious, seeing a whole bar of people go after Rey. Only one of them really got a punch in, and even then she won the fight. Ending up with everyone except for bartender on the floor, unconscious or writhing in pain. “Well,” Kylo turned around, “that was hot. Also, good thing you didn’t need my help.”

That resulted in the assassin grabbing Ben by the back of his shirt, and being pushed out the door before anything else could happen. “I should have frozen you in carbonite.” Rey hissed.

“What was going on in there?”

“I cashed in another bounty,”

“In the five minutes that we were in here, you cashed in on another bounty.” Rey held up the severed hand of an alien before putting it in the bag that she had been holding. “You’re really terrifying,” He told her.

__

It was another two days before Rey and Kylo had another conversation with each other. Rey never understood why people had this need to talk as much as they did. But of course, she wasn’t like normal people. She didn’t need someone to talk to, and she didn’t really have the skills to carry on a conversation at the first place.

But he was crying during his sleep again, and Rey let her compassion overrule her. She got up and filled her canteen with water before going to the medbay where he was laying on a cot. “Hey,” She said. She poked him and he jolted awake.

“Oh, it’s you.” She held her canteen out for him.

“You cry loud,” She said nonchalantly. “Take some water.” Before he could say anything else, she went back to the pilot’s bay and closed the door. She didn’t want to hear anything from him.


	4. Chapter 4

Ever since Rey had offered that little bit of kindness to Kylo, he didn’t know what to do with himself. He made a concerted effort to not be as annoying to her as he had been before. From there, they settled into a routine. Subdued and short conversations would make up their day. He wasn’t used to this silence, but Rey wasn’t someone who spoke a lot. He tried not to push her more than needed. Rey would always come to Kylo after he had had a nightmare. She would offer him a sip of water. He wondered what her expression was under the mask.

Then one day, Rey said, “I’m going to make a stop. There’s another job I need to pick up. Extra money.”

“Let me guess, I can’t come with you?” Rey gave one curt nod. That was the end of the conversation for the day. He remembered waking up the next day and going all throughout the ship, except for one room that Rey had locked. _She wasn’t there._ For a moment, he panicked. Then he wondered about disabling the Force dampeners and shock collar she had put on him.

He knew that he could, but ever since they had been on him, no one had been in his head. It had been strangely peaceful, despite the situation that he was in. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to change that. Kylo went back to the small cot she had provided him and laid down again. It was a cramped fit, but the mattress was more comfortable than the one that he had been provided when he was with the First Order.

He fell asleep.

The next time he saw Rey, she was waking him up. “Get up,” It was a rather rude jolt awake.

“What’s going on?” He was already getting up, wondering if something bad had happened.

“I need to get rid of this cot,” She said.

“What? I sleep on that.”

“Yeah, I know. You’re about to have more room. Just help me.” It took about twenty minutes for Rey and Kylo to install a new cot complete with two blankets and a pillow in the place he had been a few minutes ago. And then he processed what had just happened.

“Wait, why did you buy these?”

“I got a backache just from looking at you trying to sleep on that thing,” She was already heading to the cockpit. “Saw that thing and thought you could use that.”

“It’s not like you can afford that though and you really didn’t need to spend your credits on me,”

“Ren?”

“What?”

“Don’t question it.”

__

“O-okay,” Conversation promptly stopped again after that. Rey didn’t know why but she felt a little bit sad about that. That night he didn’t have a nightmare. It was another full day before she and Kylo actually had a conversation with each other.

“This may be an annoying question.” He said.

“Something tells me that you’re going to ask it anyway,”

“I am,” He said, “but hear me out. When’s the last time you ate? You never take that thing off in front of me and we’ve been around each other a lot—” He stopped talking when Rey turned. She thought for a minute.

It had been more than a day since the last time Rey had eaten. She knew that. Without any explanation, she left the cockpit and locked herself in her room with the few bit of stale rations that she had stacked away for herself. For a moment, she took her helmet off, ate and then looked back to the armor stand that was always perfectly polished. The helmet staring back at her. She put her helmet back on and came back to the cockpit.

“Are you okay?”

“Thank you for reminding me,” She told him.

“I forget sometimes too,” He muttered. The lull in conversation this time was less tense than before. “You’re stalling delivering me to the Resistance.”

__

Rey’s breath hitched and he knew that he was right on with what he had just said. Why was she doing that though? He was just more of a burden to her than anything else as far as he could tell. “Are you complaining?”

“No, I just want to know why.” He said.

More silence.

“It’s a reasonable question,”

“I didn’t say that it wasn’t.” Rey said. “I want to make sure that I’m not shorted on money when I deliver you.” She said coolly. Something about the way she said it let him know that wasn’t the whole truth, but he said nothing. Her voice sounded shaky, even through the mask. It was times like these where he really wished that he could look her in the eye and read her.

If he tried, he could break the Force dampeners and read her mind. _But then Snoke will get back in your mind. Do you really want that?_

“Right,” That earned him silence again.

Great.

The few hours that followed after it went by slowly, Rey stopped her ship somewhere that it wouldn’t be seen and put it into hibernate mode. Kylo got up, already knowing that it was time for them both to get a little bit of sleep.

“Thank you for the mattress, by the way.” He said. “I didn’t think that the other day. Thank you,”

“It’s no problem.”

“People aren’t usually nice to me, so yeah. Thanks.” Rey didn’t say anything as he stopped next to his new cot.

“Okay,” He wasn’t sure how to feel about the end of that conversation. He laid down and tried to go to sleep but ended up not being able to shut his eyes for more than a minute. Something told him that he needed to be up at this moment, so he got out of bed and started to wander the ship a little. Sometimes he wondered why Rey had stopped locking the door to the makeshift sleeping quarters that she had let him stay in.

Did she really trust him like that? Did she do that with all of her bounties? The carbonite machine told him that the answer to that question was no. He stared at the twelve slates of carbonite that were mounted on the wall opposite him. Twelve people that she has just frozen in there, probably either trophies or jobs that she had not delivered on yet.

He had so many questions about this woman but he knew that none of them were going to be answered. He heard murmuring coming from the door that was always locked. This time it wasn’t locked. It was slightly open and he really didn’t mean to listen in. He really didn’t mean to listen at all, but he still caught part of what she said. “Sometimes I’m just so tired,” She said, “and I know that I’m supposed to go on. That this is what you wanted from me but I just wish you were here—” It was then that she noticed that he was watching her.

He looked away and she got up, making sure the door was shut.

Great.


	5. Original Sin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bruh

_The village smelled of smoke and fire. The smell permeated Rey’s home, mixing with the smell of rotting flesh was nauseating. Rey was five and the only survivor of the massacre that took her parents and her home from her. She covered in the blood of her father, who had stayed by her side to protect her while her mother had gone to the front lines to fight the people that were taking her village by storm. Rey was laid down in her bed, clutching the helmet of her father. She was too cold and too scared to get out of the bed that she had stayed in._

_She would have died there. If it wasn’t for the fact that someone else had come by, she would have died. He came as the sun rose, and at first Rey was scared when she heard the door to her home open, but not as much so when she saw him. It was another Mandalorian._

_Rey wasn't always on her own. There were people that cared, but the one that cared the most was the one she didn't mention. Because no one ever asked. She remembered when he found her, amongst the wreckage of a coven of Mandalorians and their followers._

__

Kylo doesn’t ask Rey what she had been saying. Rey doesn’t tell him. It’s back to weird silence again, but they’re almost to the Resistance so it doesn’t matter. “You think when they kill me it will be swift and painless?”

“I hope they don’t kill you,” Rey said without thinking. “I think that most people deserve to atone for their sins, including you.”

“Atoning almost seems scarier at this point,”

“Do you want to right the wrongs that you committed?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then you need to get rid of your fear,” She told him, “atone for the people you hurt. Improve. Grow. It’s the only thing you can do as a human being.” Kylo wanted to bring up how the humiliation was strong, how he didn’t know if he could face his mother but Rey kept talking. “If I need to—I will personally vouch for you. If that would make a difference.”

“Do you normally do that for people?” The silence he heard from her told him that the answer to that question was no.

So, what about him was different?

__

_She was a tiny child and her parents had taken her off the hands of people that were going to sell her for drinking money but didn't. All she knew were Mandalorians, with their helmets on and their guards up, but they were always kind to her. She loved everyone in her village. They all died. Rey thought she was going to die too, with no food and no one to take care of her. Until he came._

_Another Mandalorian. She remembered how much she cried and clung to her father's armor. He must've heard her as he was out and about. She stopped crying when she saw him. His armor looked like one of her dad's friends, but it wasn't him. Rey clutched her father's helmet as he looked around her scorched home. "Are you the only one here?" She nodded._

_He tilts his head to the side, and she could feel the sympathy rolling off of him. "I wish I'd been here sooner." He said. "I'm sorry kid," She tries not to cry. Instead she asks, "Do you have something to eat?"_

_He nods once and she gets up. "I... I need their armor. I can't carry it all."_

_"I can help. We'll find a cart, get it to my ship."_

_"Thank you-"_

_“Dyn, you can call me Dyn.”_

__

“We’re two hours away from the dropsite,” Rey told him. She turned around. “I’m unfortunately going to have to cuff you again.” Ben shrugged and let her do it without another word.

“Is there any specific way that you like to do this sort of thing?”

“You stay on the ship until I get the money,” She told him. He nodded and didn’t say anything else. He looked pensive. Or worried. Either one. She didn’t really know what to say. So she didn’t say anything. She just turned back to her ship and kept piloting it.

Two hours went by faster than Rey thought that it would. She commed Poe Dameron and confirmed that he was waiting for her like he said that he was. “Wait here,” She said, “and whatever you do, do not panic when I come get you. That will get you shot and I really won’t be able to help you any more if you do that.”

He doesn’t answer her verbally.

Just nods.

For once, Rey wished that she was better at comforting people. She wasn’t though. She just gave him a curt nod and left him, closing up the ship before meeting Poe Dameron in the middle of the field with Kylo Ren’s lightsaber in her hands. He was standing there with three other Resistance members. Two women and a man. “Do you have proof?”

Rey held up the lightsaber.

“Where is he?”

“He’s in my ship,”

“Are you gonna—”

“I don’t bring him out until you provide me payment.”

“Is he—”

“He’s alive,”

“So sorry that you had to deal with that. Did you—”

“Payment.”

Dameron looked uneasy, and something told Rey that she was about to be very disappointed. “Right, right, yeah.” He tossed her a bag full of credits and Rey took them. Counting them. “Do you really have to count them right now?”

“Yes,” She said, “because I can tell from the weight of the bag that you’re low and I just want to know how much.”

“Can’t we have a discount or something? It’s not like you’re exactly cheap.” Rey could see the other Resistance officers reaching for their blasters.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Rey warned. That seemed to be enough to keep them from drawing their weapons on her. “You’re over two thousand short.” She said. “Did you really think that was going to work? Shorting me like that, I’m not stupid.”

“Listen,” The woman said, “we tried to get the money, but it’s basically depleting the money that we do already have.”

“Don’t you have royal lineage in the Resistance? Leia Organa. What did she deplete all her resources?”

“Her assets were destroyed by the First Order,” The woman said, “we really tried. Please. This is our last hope.” Rey looked to the woman and then back to Poe. She took half of the credits out of the bag and tossed it back at him.

  
“I’ll be taking this.”

__

_"Okay," She said, "I'm Rey." She kept her father's helmet in her hands. Her little hands were covered in dry blood and she smelled of smoke but she didn't care._

_"My father was in the Beroya clan,"_

_"He must've been very heroic then." Rey started to pick up more of his armor. Dyn helped and found a cart where she laid down blankets to keep the armor from getting scratched up. And then they found her mother’s armor... Rey thought she saw someone in it, but Dyn turned her away before she could say anything and locked her in another house. She screamed and screamed and when he came back her mother's armor was in the cart too, and that body she might have seen was not. Dyn told her she was just seeing things. Rey accepted that as a little kid._

__

Rey got back on the ship with another word and closed the door angrily. “Is it—” She barreled past Kylo and into the piloting bay.

“Buckle the fuck up, this isn’t going to be pretty!” Instead of asking questions, Kylo did exactly as she said as she lifted off. It wasn’t very much longer after that that Rey went to warp speed, probably at too low of an altitude because could hear Ren shout,

“Are you insane?”

They still got out of there though, only to have another ship behind them following them. “Fuck,” Rey said. “I’m about to do something I really don’t like to do.”

“And what’s that?”

“Lightspeed skipping.” Kylo looked like he was about to throw up.

“Do it.” He said. Rey did.

Not once. Not twice. Not three times. She did it five times before she lost Poe Dameron, and the engine was almost completely depleted. “I’m so glad I haven’t eaten anything.” Kylo grimaced and Rey turned to unlock his cuffs again.

__

_Dyn picked her up halfway to his ship. She had almost fainted three times. She mumbled something about him not needing to do that as he walked, controlling the cart and her. He set her down once they got into the ship and came back with the armor, and then gave her a pack of rations. "Eat slowly or you'll get sick."_

_She does. He lifts off without another word. Rey quickly finds out that Dyn Jarren is much like her. They don’t talk much, but when he does, it’s to make sure that she’s okay. He stops for more blankets, let her bathe in a refresher, and then they go off again. He never shows her his face, but he doesn’t have to. She trusts him within the first week that the two of them ride together. He spends his credits to make sure that she has things to entertain her. Sometimes, he goes off and hunts bounties. Rey always wanted to go with him when he did that. “Sorry, kid. But it’s better if you stay in the ship. You need to stay safe.”_

__

“Is there any reason I’m not on a Resistance ship right now?” Kylo was confused, really confused to say the least and as Rey figured out where they could go to get her ship fixed questions swirled around in his brain. He had so many questions.

“They tried to short me,” Rey answered simply. Kylo had a feeling that was going to happen. Still. “It states in any contract I do that I don’t give up the target without my full dues being paid. They didn’t pay up, they don’t get you.”

“So you just put a bigger target on yourself because you stole me from the First Order and you’re keeping me from the Resistance?”

“Are you complaining?”

“No, I’m not.” He said. “It’s just, am I really worth it?” Rey was silent as she made sure that the collar was off too. He was staring up at her and it was making her feel uncomfortable. “To put you in danger like that, am I really worth it?”

“You can make yourself worth it, I need a co-pilot. A second on my hunts would be good.”

“Do you really trust me that much?”

Yes. “No.” She said. “I don’t trust anyone,”

“Then why did you offer?”

“Because I do need a second, and if you want to make yourself worth it, if you want to prove what I did was worth while then you’re going to have to pull your weight around here.”

__

_She doesn’t argue, she’s just happy to have someone who cares about her. Rey forgot her birthday after a year of riding along with Dyn. When he asked her, she just blinked. “Do you not remember?” When she shook her head, he just gave her a curt nod. “How about we make it the day that I found you?”_

_“I would like that a lot.”_

_They figure out when she turns nine and celebrate her birthday that day. That is also the day she asks him to teach her how to fight. “I want to be like you,” She said, “like my mother and father, I want to be a Mandalorian. Honor my family.”_

_“You don’t want to be like me, kid. It’s a lonely road.”_

_“You don’t know what I want,” Rey said. “I want this.”_

_There’s a long silence between them. “Are you sure about that, kid?”_

__

The only place that Rey could land in time was on Dartessex IV, which wasn’t ideal but it was the best that she could do. Plus, she was known by her house of the guild, so she was given free entry. “I need to tell you something.” Rey said.

“Oh?”

“Are you familiar with House Renliss?”

“Aren’t they part of the Bounty Hunter’s Guild?”

“Yes, that’s the part of the Guild that I’m in. They’re only female and—well. They don’t like men. We’re about to land on the planet that houses their headquarters.”

“So stay on the ship,”

“Yes.”

“Got it.”

He didn’t even try to argue with her. Rey was glad, because she didn’t have the energy. She landed in a loading dock that was prepared from her and got off the ship. At first things were quiet, droids were just starting to come over to look at her ship. It didn’t take long for her to get recognized though. “Oh look who it is,” That voice was familiar. Rey turned around to be met with one of the first people that she ever performed bounties with.

Those were different days. Different times.

“Nadyja,” Rey said curtly. She turned to see the assassin rounding the corner as the droids began to work on the ship. Nadyja used to be a human. These days she was putting herself together with scraps and mix matched parts. She still had her face. Still had her eyes. And that bitter tone about her that Rey hadn’t been able to pick out at one point.

“Haven’t seen you since you were what, seventeen?” Nadyja said. “What made you come back to headquarters?”

“Just needed to refuel, closest planet near by.”

“You must’ve been really low on fuel to come here.” She said. She moved closer to the ship. “Mind if I uh—go on?”

“Yes.” Rey said curtly.

“Oh, and why’s that?”

“Because I don’t like people in my ship,” She really didn’t want to have to do that now. Nadyja moved closer to her, grinning. Her teeth were a mix of durasteel and regular human teeth now, creating this grotesque mutation that made Rey want to shiver. She was so close to Rey, and Rey hated the invasion of personal space.

“You used to not mind it,”

“That was a long time ago, Nadyja.” It was a very long time ago and it was something that she didn’t want to talk about. “Whatever, buzzkill.” The woman said. “I’ll let you refuel your ship but then I don’t want to see you around here anymore.” She left before Rey could answer her, but she was glad that the woman didn’t want to have anything to do with her anymore.

__

Ren waited for too long before the ship was fixed and Rey came back on board with more rations. She didn’t say anything just lifted off and they were off of Dartessex IV in minutes. He wanted to ask her why she looked so tense when she had been on a planet that she considered her headquarters, but he didn’t want to push his boundaries, so he didn’t. Instead he and Rey were in that still silence again before Rey spoke again later that night.

“We need to find a place to lie low,” She told him.

“I agree.”

“Then when everything dies down, we can go out and do jobs together. How does that sound?”

“That sounds great.” Kylo said. The two of them were silent for a long time before Kylo told her something that he might regret later. “Kylo Ren isn’t my real name.” She stills. “My real name is Ben. Ben Solo.” He told her this because he trusted her, even if she didn’t trust him. She had risked her life for him. She was still risking her life for him even as they spoke.

“Do you want me to start calling you that?”

“Just Ben. It’s not as easy to track Kylo,”

“And when we’re not with others?”

“I—I don’t know yet.” He said.

“For now, I’ll just call you Kylo. Okay? When you want—tell me.” He nodded. That was the end of that conversation, but he felt like there was something off his chest now.

__

They had been on the run for weeks, not really able to find a place where they could lie low. Rey was getting tired. She hadn’t slept in a long while, and Kylo noticed. She could tell that he was concerned for her. She pretended to not notice it. She prayed that she would find a place where they could stop so she could just sleep. At this moment in time she had been up for four days without any sleep at all. “You need to go to sleep,” Kylo had told her. “You’ll start to hallucinate if you don’t.”

“Can’t sleep.”

“If you want me to take over, let me do it. Even just an hour would be better than no sleep at all. You need to be at your best,”

“I’m not tired.”

“Rey, go get some sleep or I’ll make you go to sleep and you’ll be asleep a lot longer than you want to be.”

“Is that a threat?” She turned around and suddenly was very aware of the vertigo that she was feeling.

“That’s it,” Rey passed out before she could respond. When she woke up they had landed on a planet and she was in her bed. Her helmet hadn’t been disturbed but she was still alarmed that she was in a different place than where she started. A wave if anger past through her as she came out of her room and immediately located Kylo. “Got enough sleep?” She didn’t think, she just acted. She walked over to him and grabbed the collar of his shirt.

“Don’t you ever do that again.” She said. He swallowed.

“Rey, you needed—”

“I don’t give a shit what I needed,” She said, “if you use the Force on me again, I’ll throw you out the airlock during hyperspeed.”

“O-okay,” He swallowed hard. They were too close to each other. Rey dropped him.

“Now, what planet are we on?”

“Ithor,”

“Okay, good. There’s not much here for people to suspect.”

“See, I know what I’m doing.”

“I didn’t say that you didn’t know what you’re doing, you using the Force on me like that was a breach of trust because I told you that I was fine. You didn’t listen.” Rey said curtly. “That is the end of the conversation.” Ithor was a lush planet full of greenery and life but not a lot of people flocked to it, due to it’s location away from most planets and trading ports. It made it inconvenient to get to.

Rey could make good use of this. And she did. They managed to be there for a whole week before anything happened. The whole time they would hunt and walk around for fresh air and silently play with the hologram table that Rey had but never used in her ship. They seemed to dance around the topic of the Force. Of what they were going to do after everything.

Rey didn’t know how to approach it and she knew that Kylo wasn’t going to say anything. She needed to figure out what they were going to do, and fast. There was only a limited amount of time before either the First Order or the Resistance would find them, and it would be too late for them to get out of the planet. Rey wasn’t sure what they were going to do about it. Besides die.

If they were going to get stuck by both of them, they were most likely going to die.

She just didn’t expect that it wouldn’t just be the First Order and the Resistance that showed up. But the Bounty Hunter’s Guild as well.

__

The Resistance came in the cover of night. Kylo didn’t know how they tracked them, but at first there were only a few. They made camp far enough away from Rey and Kylo’s camp that Rey didn’t seem too alarmed by that. The only problem was that for some reason the ship didn’t want to start up. That was when the both of them really started to worry. “Go see if you can figure out what’s wrong.” She told him.

“I’ll keep watch.” Kylo did. He looked over everything and couldn’t find a damn thing that didn’t look out of place. There wasn’t any time to do a deeper inspection before the sun came up and more Resistance came. And then the First Order. Kylo could feel a shroud of darkness wash over him, and something dropped in the pit of his stomach.

He felt like he was going to vomit, and rushed to the outside of the ship to see the sun being blocked by the Finalizer. Snoke’s ship.

This was not good. _It’s been a long time, boy. Did you really think that you could get away from me so easily? You betrayed your master and the Knights of Ren. For this you must pay._ He tried his best to block it out of his head because Rey was frozen, calculating what to do next.

“Motherfucker,” She sighed. She didn’t sound panicked at all, just a little tired. “You didn’t see anything, did you?”

“No.”

“We’re probably going to die,” She said, “most likely going to die. So—I’m going to guess that you don’t want to go to the First Order.”

“No,”

“You ready to atone for your sins?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,”

“Then fight with me,” They set up makeshift traps as well as they could in the limited amount of time that they had. Kylo was glad that he parked in an area where AT-STs and AT-ATs couldn’t get through the thick brush and wild life in a functional way. Then, Rey gave him his lightsaber back, as well as three blasters. “It’s been a good run,” She told him.

“Yeah, it has.” He told her. He couldn’t believe that in this amount of time, Rey had taken him away from the thing that ruined his life and made him realize that it wasn’t the right path to go down, just by kidnapping him. He didn’t want to see her die now. He had been against harrowing odds before, but that was when his uncle was next to him and they were still training.

Now was not a good time to think about his uncle, Kylo shook his head as they planned their next moves. Rey had a lot of weapons. A lot. She placed metal wire along the cropping of trees in three different areas. The metal was sharp enough to slice any living being open. Then they waited.

They didn’t have to wait long before the fighting began.

__

Rey was not the type of person to lay down and take it. She was not the type of person that would go down quietly and as her adrenaline ran high, she thought of all of the odds that she had to face. She thought of all the people that she had help her get this far, and then her mind went to her mother and father. Her mother, formerly part of the Royal Guard of Mandalore, and her father part of a clan that specialized in taking down slavers and Imperialist sympathizers. She wondered if they would be proud of her. Wondered if they had seen all the bad things that she had done in her life and been disappointed. Wondered if they were looking down on her now, wishing that she had gone down a different path in life.

Rey was ready to die a warrior’s death, like her father, who stayed until his last breath to make sure that she was alive. When they came, it was first the air fire to try and clear some brush to get better shots at them. And then it was TIE-Fighters, who were trying to do the same thing and fight the Resistance at the same time. Then it was the ground troops. The Resistance set a trench line, the bounty hunters came first, one of the stupider ones getting sliced apart by the razor thin wire trap that Rey set.

Everything was a blur. Rey gunned down so many people, she was saving her more explosive weapons for when things were going to get to the wire. People started to pile up on the wire and climb over each other. Rey had to resort to using two blasters, and when people finally started to get to her, she used one set of her whistling birds.

Twelve people dead at once.

__

Kylo was good at two things. Fighting and using the Force. He wasn’t good at much else in his life, but at this exact moment, it was the two things he needed. The thing he connected to wasn’t exactly the dark and mangled thing that he had always tapped into before. This was something more. His adrenaline was on high and he was very much aware of the peril that both he and Rey were in, but he knew that he needed to get both him and Rey out of this mess.

Stormtroopers fell into the spiked holes that he had set up with the Force and screamed, more came, entangling in brambles and bushes and the thickets that still blocked them from the wire traps. It took more storm troopers than Kylo thought for them to knock those barriers down. _I need you._ He reached out with the Force and he heard an answer. This wasn’t from his grandfather though. This answer was bright and strong and clear and he could feel it in his heart. It was his mother. But not just her. There were others. Others who he couldn’t name.

Through the clearness of his mind, he felt a darkness at the edge of his mind, trying to creep in and ruin him. _Ben._ They clearly said. _You can do this._ He felt an energy like he had never felt before, in his soul and in his mind.

And then it began.

The fight for his life.

Not Kylo Ren’s life.

The fight for Ben Solo’s life.

__

The first wave lasted about an hour on all sides. The Bounty Hunter’s Guild, The Resistance, and the First Order drew back after expending a large part of their group. Rey had only been shot in the shoulder once, but other than that she was okay. It wasn’t the worst that she had to deal with. She knew what they were doing. Trying to tire them out. Everyone had the same strategy too, which Rey found kind of hilarious.

“Are you okay?” Rey called to Kylo. He was standing there, waiting, catching his breath and sweating.

“Yes, you?”

“I’m fine, I’m going up to check on the engine, see if it’s something there. Yell as loud as you can when people come.”

Kylo nodded and Rey went up into the ship, she looked at the normal stuff that Kylo would have looked at already before flashing back to Dartessex. “Motherf—”

“Rey!”

She came back out, guns blazing. She didn’t care how many people she killed. She was pissed now. That’s when she came face to face with Nadyja. “Are you sure that you want to shoot at me, babe?” Rey rolled her eyes. She was glad that no one could see inside of her helmet. “I know what’s wrong with your ship.” Stormtrooper blasts shot right past them, Rey moved to the side a little. That was it.

Rey was glad she had a taser, that just so happened to make most of Nadyja’s robotic parts go inactive in just one try. She moved over to the woman and slammed her into the ground not once, not twice, but three times. “What is wrong with my ship?” She shouted with an intensity that she had never shouted before. When she finally stopped the woman was crying.

Rey didn’t care. “Tell me what the fuck is wrong with my ship or I can make life a whole lot worse for you.”

“O-okay, I put a compressor on your engine, it contains a tracker.” Rey rolled her eyes. She couldn’t believe she was so stupid as to not check for that when she and Nadyja had met early. With one fell stomp of her boot, she crushed Nadyja’s head in, took her gun and her pack of throwing knives and readied herself for the next wave.

__

They knew what was wrong with the ship now, but they still didn’t have time to fix it. The second wave came and Ben was ready. Ben had fought and fought and fought for his own life for so long and never got to live it. He had never gotten to have a life free of pain and suffering and the feeling of being torn apart. He wanted that, he wanted to fight for something that he could have. Something that he wanted to make with his life.

That is what he was fighting for.

He was fighting because he wanted to make his mother proud. Wanted to give her something to look at that didn’t disappoint her.

He was fighting for Rey.

Because she inadvertently saved him. She had made him feel better about facing his mother. She was nice when she didn’t have to be and Ben owed everything to her for getting him away from the First Order.

_She will leave you like your parents did. Like your uncle did._ Snoke’s voice tore through his mind like a knife and made him falter. Before he knew what was happening, he almost got shot. But he didn’t, because Rey had ran and pushed him to the other side of the ship, getting shot in the abdomen in the process. He didn’t have time to look back at her and try and help or process what just happened, he just knew that Rey had saved him from an injury that would have majorly hampered him from being able to function.

The second wave ended. Ben immediately went to check on Rey.

“Are you okay?”

“The shot only minorly jeopardized the integrity of my armor.” She said. “I should be fine. Check the engine, there’s a compressor on it. I’ll take watch.” Ben did. It took him too long because he was tired from the fighting but he found it. “Rey, I found it, there’s a problem.”

“What’s that?”

“The device attaching it to the engine, I don’t—it’s foreign.”

“Just pull it out, Kylo.” She yelled.

“What do you mean just pull it out?”

“I said, just pull it out!” Ben clutched the compressor and pulled. The force of the next explosion pulled it out and knocked him off his feet. When he got up, he immediately started looking for Rey. She was ten feet away, her body looking broken and filled with shrapnel. Every one around her was dead. Ben ran for her.

“Rey!” She was still alive, people were coming.

“Just leave me here,”

“No, nope. I’m not going to do that.”

“Ren, you’ll die.” He picked her up without another thought, even though that might be detrimental to her. Her body felt so broken and limp in his hands. He could feel her trying to breathe and struggling as he got to the ship, running up the ramp as the fire began and getting it closed before setting her in the medbay cot.

“Don’t die,” He said, “just give me a second.” Ben ran for the cockpit. “I can do this, I can do this, I can do this.” He didn’t have time to process or panic, he just lifted off. The air tirade came back, and Ben suddenly became aware of the fact that if he did anything too crazy, he could hurt Rey worse than she already was hurt. He tried, but the occasional tight turn and flying through exploding ships was unavoidable, and then Ben jumped to warp speed.

Lightspeed skipping.

He had always hated doing that.

But it was necessary so he could get to a place where Rey could get healed. They ended up on Dantooine.


	6. anything to keep going

_Dyn and Rey had fallen into a routine. They knew how each other fought. Rey was lethal, but not so much so that she didn’t have Dyn’s back. And not so much so that she would have things that she would regret later in life, Dyn made sure that she didn’t go to far. He thought of it as his duty. He also thought of it as his duty to keep Rey safe, despite the constant reminders that she was almost eighteen, and she could take care of herself. “We stay alive together,” She told him, “so you take care of yourself first, not me.”_

_That didn’t stop him from putting her first. Because of course it didn’t. Dyn was just like that._

__

When they landed, Ben ran right back to Rey. His brain was running a thousand miles per minute. She was still breathing, but he could feel her labored and wet breaths through her helmet. Her leg was at kind of an odd angle and she looked like a broken doll. He knelt down next to her, praying that she wasn’t dead. He wasn’t sure what he would do if she was dead. “Rey. Rey—are you awake?”

“Yeah,” Her voice sounded tinny and distant. He didn’t have much time.

“I can get some bacta and we can stop whatever bleeding, I—”

“There’s not enough bacta on this ship to do that,” She said, “—shrapnel in my chest. It’s okay. It’s okay.”  
  


“If you think that I’m letting you die after everything—”

“I’d live and die a warrior’s death; I’d get to see my parents.” Rey had never talked about her parents before. “I—I wonder if they’d be proud.” She coughed and the wheeze that came from her broke Ben’s heart. He wasn’t good at this. He wasn’t good at just sitting back and letting this happen.

“Rey,”

“It’s okay,”

“It’s not okay—Rey if you die, I have no one. You were the one that helped me escape, you were the one that listened. You can’t die. Please, let me try. Let me try to heal you.”

__

_Some missions were longer than others. Dyn and Rey was stay up together and watch the sun set on whatever planet they were on, and they would just talk. Or sometimes they wouldn’t talk at all, they’d play games in silence or Dyn would stay up as Rey stayed close to him and fell asleep. One time, they had been talking and Rey had called him dad._

_She was silent for a minute and so was Dyn. “Sorry,” Rey said, “I—”_

_“It’s fine,” Dyn told her, “you can call me that if you want.”_

_“I don’t want to replace…” She trailed off._

_“I know,” The Mandalorian told her, “but I think your dad would agree that you finding someone else who cares about you wouldn’t be replacing him.” He was right. Still, Rey didn’t say it. It just felt too personal and every time she said something like that, she imagined her village. The burning wreckage all around. The smell of death permeating her clothes._

_It didn’t mean that she didn’t value him any less though, or loved him any less. She remembered that moment the first time Dyn got injured on one of their missions._

____

Rey was dying.

She was trying to be brave. She was really trying to be brave about it.

Accept it.

This is the way.

But there was still so much to do, and then there was Kylo who was pleading in this broken way to let him heal her. “I would need to take off your helmet,”

“Don’t you dare,”

“Rey, what is so wrong with me seeing your face?”

“No one has seen my face since I was a little girl. That is the way.” A lie. But at the same time—partially not a lie.

“Was the way, there isn’t any more Mandalorians out there.” She knew that he wasn’t trying to be cruel right now, but that hurt more than it should’ve. Rey couldn’t see through her helmet and was pretty sure that it was damaged anyway.

“You wouldn’t understand, you’ve never had a code to follow.”

“I was training to become a Jedi, before all of this happened. Of course, I’ve had a code to follow.”

Rey closed her eyes, her breathing hitched. “If I take the helmet off, that’s it—”

“I won’t use it against you. Ever. No one will have to know and I can pretend that this never happened. Please, Rey. Please just let me do this.”

__

_It happened too fast for Rey to be prepared, the First Order operative had a bomb. Dyn knocked her out of the way and took most of the blow himself. To Rey’s horror, when she got up, she could see exposed muscle. “No, no, no.” She felt like she could throw up, and then something came over her. This dark, primal rage that someone had dared to help the man that protected her and raised her._

_The man that had saved her from starving to death and taught her how to fight. “It’s okay,” She had never shed so much blood in her life. She had never enjoyed killing before in her life, but that day she did. Enjoyed hurting the people that hurt her and Dyn. Once the threat was gone and it was safe to move him, He had told her. “It’s okay. I’m old, it’s my time.”_

_“Don’t you dare say that,” Rey said._

_“More people are going to be coming soon,”_

_“Let them come,” Adrenaline was still pumping through her veins. “I’m getting you out of here.”_

_“I’m not going to last that long,”_

_“Yes you are,”_

_“It’s not—”_

_“Never tell me the odds,” She told him, “I’m getting you out of here and you’re going to get into a bacta tank and you’re going to live, old man. You have because I need you. I need you. I need you.”_

_“You know everything that I do, now. It’s okay. It’s okay.”_

_“No it’s not!” She had never yelled at Dyn before. Never protested something as heavily as this. “It’s not going to be okay without you alive. It’s not. You saved me, without you I would’ve died a scared little girl alongside my parents. Without you, I would’ve died alone. I need you.”_

_He protested but Rey shut him up when she found a wagon used for spare parts, it was just big enough for him. She emptied it out as fast as she could and wrapped an arm under Dyn. It took all her strength to move him without hurting him any further but she did it, she managed to get him in without even hitting his head, and then started to pull._

_“We’re going to get out of here,”_

_“Kid, I appreciate this but I’m going to slow you down.” He was too weak to do anything else in protest of her doing this, though. Rey planned to keep him talking, even if this self-sacrificing thing that he was doing was pissing her off at the moment. “I am slowing you down. You need to just leave, let me die.”_

_“I’m not letting you die, not today.”_

_“If not today, it’ll be another.”_

_“It will be another day,” Rey said, “I’m not stupid enough to think that you wouldn’t die. But not today. And when you die, I’m going to be there, making sure that you’re not alone. Because that’s what we do,” She had tears in her eyes at this point. “You made sure that I wasn’t alone when everyone in my village was killed, I’m doing the same for you.” A First Order droid rounded the corner and nearly attacked. Rey was faster._

_One of the things that she had picked up from her travels were that First Order droids all had fast acting bacta sprays on them. You just had to know how to disable their combative functions. Rey had just the thing to do that. A data hacking knife, and incredibly good aim._

_As soon as the combative function was disabled it asked, “Is there something that I can do for you, Master?”_

_“Fix him,” Rey said, “and once your done stopping the bleeding I need you to carry the cart.”_

_The droid assessed his wounds. “There is a problem.” The droid said._

_“What?”_

_“I can stop the bleeding from most of his wounds, but others require him to go into a bacta tank.”_

_“I am not—”_

_“You don’t get to make decisions right now,” Rey said. “I do. I’m making the decisions. Stop the bleeding, where’s the nearest bacta tank that we can get him to,”_

_“The nearest vacant First Order ship is one point five decameters away.”_

_“We won’t make it,”_

_“Stop the bleeding.” Rey told him. “We’re going.” Dyn couldn’t put up much of an argument._

_Rey lost a lot of things that day, but Dyn Jarren did not die._

__

“I—give me a minute and then you can take it off.”

“Okay,” He started working on other broken pieces of her armor. “I can do this, I can do this, I can do this.” He muttered under his breath. _No you can’t._ A voice said in his head. _You break everything that matters to you, what makes you think that you’ll do any different with the girl?_ That was the price with not having the Force cuffs on.

He could hear his voice again.

He tried his best to block it out.

Rey mattered, and he wasn’t going to mess it up, because even if Snoke was right, he wasn’t in control of his life anymore.

He could do this.

He could do this.

_You can do this._

_Grandfather?_

_You can do this, have faith. The Force is with you._

“Okay.” He said.

“Are you ready?”

__

_There was a problem. “This ship only has enough oxygen for one.”_

_“Rey,”_

_“Can you fly this ship?”_

_“Yes,” The droid said._

_“Put him under.”_

_“Rey, I’m not okay with this.”_

_“It’ll be fine.” She told him. She looked at the bacta tank that was ready to get fired up. “It’ll be fine.”_

_“Droids are unreliable,”_

_“It’s the only option we have. There’s enough oxygen in here for you and you alone to make it off planet. He’s going to hide you somewhere where you won’t get hurt. You’ll heal,”_

_“And what about you?”_

_“Sometimes you have to fight for what you love, and stop trying to kill what you hate. Even if you die for it.” She squeezed his hand, and she knew that he was going to try something. She knew that he was going to try and pull her into the ship and muster up enough strength to get out. Rey pushed him back down. “Thank you dad, for everything. I’ll see you soon. Hopefully.” The droid put him under and she got off the ship._

_The First Order was coming._

_She led them away._

__

“Okay, I… you have to promise that you’re not going to tell anyone about this. Ever.” He needed her. That’s what she used to rationalize this. Someone still needed her so she couldn’t die yet.

“I promise,” She bit her lip and tried to stop herself from feeling humiliated as Ben took the broken helmet off of her. His breath caught for a second before he got to work taking off the rest of her armor to make sure that nothing obstructed his view of her injuries. “I’m going to have to use the Force.”

“Do what you have to do,” She didn’t look at him.

She couldn’t. “Just get it over with.” She told him.

“Yeah, will do.”


	7. a good man

When Ben took off Rey’s helmet, he wasn’t sure what he was expecting. He knew that he wasn’t expecting someone so young, or so pretty. _Focus, Ben._ She was getting to the point where she was babbling. This wasn’t good. Ben needed to focus. Feeling the Force was basically a second nature to Ben. But it had always turned sour after a while. He wasn’t going to let that happen this time.

__

_Ben could tell that his uncle didn’t like him. He wasn’t stupid. Most people just assumed that kids couldn’t tell what they thought about them. Ben could. Most kids could—in fact. He could tell that his uncle tried, but was unused to unruly and anti-social children. Could he really blame Luke for hating him? He hated himself too._

_Ben didn’t have any friends._

_Didn’t have anyone to listen to him. That probably didn’t help his destructive nature, or the fact that sometimes he blamed himself for things that weren’t his fault. “Why do you keep breaking everything?” One of the kids had snarled at him when they were in class. “It’s annoying. Get a hold of yourself,”_

_He tried._

_He really did._

_And yet, there was always this failure looming on his shoulders that he could never get rid of everything. That’s why he accepted the fact that he just broke everything._

__

The Force felt different this time, and not in a bad way, but in a very very good way. Like it wasn’t as heavy on him as it had been before. Right now it was just reassuring, flowing from him, he could see her wounds start to close up, the shrapnel that was in her slowly started to expel and bones corrected themselves. Rey was still talking, at this point she wasn’t really making sense. Talking about fire, a village. “Rey?” This was the first time that he got her attention.

“Yeah?”

“It’s going to be okay, you’re going to be okay. Okay?”

“Okay.” Rey bit back a sob. Ben knew that this must be humiliating, and his heart broke for her. He knew that after this, nothing would return to normal, but he hoped that it would change for the better. He hoped that Rey would be able to trust him more after this.

That she would continue to be his friend.

Ben needed her, desperately.

__

_“God damn it, Ben. Why are you always the one that gets into fights?” Ben was silent. He and his uncle got into this fight all the time. “It’s like you’re trying to fall to the dark side.” This was new, and something that his uncle had never dared to say before. Ben looked up at him._

_“So your solution is to scream at me and tell me I’m going to be just as bad as Darth Vader because I **defended** myself in a fight? Are you serious right now?” _

__

Ben had to heal her in segments, using bacta and the Force. Because she was really, really injured and it was taking a lot out of him. More than he thought it was going to. “Kylo,” Rey said at one point, her eyes were closed shut and she wasn’t looking at him.

“Yeah?”

“I’m cold.”

“I-I can find a blanket.”

“Can you—just come here? Just hold me, please?” Her voice sounded so small and tinny and Ben hated it. Ben hated that she felt this way right now. He swallowed harshly and then made his way over to the cot. There was barely enough room for him to fit, but he did his best, trying not to hurt Rey in the process, gently, he put one arm around her, but not the other. It only took five minutes before her to fall asleep after that.

Ben fell asleep soon after that.

__

Rey didn’t remember what was the last thing that happened to her after she got hit by an explosion, but she woke up in her room starving and with newly repaired armor and more rations waiting for her. She looked around and Ren was nowhere to be seen.

With horror, she remembered some fragments of things that happened. Ben taking off her helmet. Rey crying, sure that she was going to die. She was still alive. And her stomach was growling. She tore into the rations and ate them with a little less restraint than she should have, then she put all of her armor back on and stepped outside her room.

Her legs felt heavy from not being used, but she had expected them. She was just going to have to stretch them out. “Ren?” She called out. Part of her wondered if he had just left, if he had gone back to the First Order. She got her answer when Ren came out of the cockpit, with the Force Dampening cuffs back on his wrists. Rey was glad she was wearing her helmet again, otherwise he would see the confusion on her face.

“Yep?”

“Just wondering where you were,” she paused, “you know you don’t need those anymore. Right?”

“It’s better that I do,” He told her. Then he smiled, a tired look in his eyes that Rey wasn’t sure how to decipher. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay,” She said, “thank you for whatever you did. I don’t remember much but uh, thank you. And thank you for repairing my armor.”

“No problem,”

“Where are we?”

“Dantooine,”

“How long was I out?”

“About a week and a half,”

“Wow,”

“Yeah. You scared me, but like I said, I’m glad that you’re okay.”

“All thanks to you,” Ben smirked a little and Rey felt this strange feeling in her chest that made her a little bit nauseous when he did so. “Why didn’t you leave?”

“Because you’re my friend, I wasn’t going to just leave you to die, even if you wanted me to.” Rey was really glad that she was wearing the helmet again.

“You’re a good man, K—”

“—Ben,”

“You want to go by Ben again?”

“Yeah,” Ben nodded, “I think it’s time.”

Rey nodded. Perhaps it was. “Well, Ben. You’re a good man, better than most. Thank you, for everything.”


	8. a little moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the short update am under the weather

The next time Ben saw Rey without her helmet, it was late. They were still on Dantooine, and Rey was still trying to recover from being out of commission for a week and a half. The cooling on the ship wasn’t working very well and both Rey and Ben were sweating. Finally, she just took her helmet off in the cockpit next to him and set it right next to her. Ben didn’t say anything because he didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. That didn’t stop him from looking though. She was really pretty. The kind of pretty that just takes your breath away.

He wanted to ask when the last time she looked in a mirror was, but he was afraid the answer would break his heart. Before he could stop himself, he spoke. “Rey,”

“Hm?”

He stopped himself for saying what he was going to say, instead electing to ask, “Where do you think we should head to next?” This time, Rey looked Ben in the eyes and Ben just about died. He didn’t realize just how hazel her eyes were. He wondered if she felt something there too. If it was just him going insane.

“I’m not sure,” She said, “no one has found us yet. And I’m not sure I’m ready to go on the run again. Tired.” There was a pause between the two of them, and it was so grating. “Why? You bored?”

“No,” He said, “in fact I would love to just settle on some planet and start a farm or something away from all this drama.”

Rey raised an eyebrow and he actually saw her smile, a little. It was the most beautiful thing ever and he was so doomed. He felt his stomach getting a little uneasy. “You don’t strike me as the farm type of person.”

“Oh yeah,” He said, “anywhere with a lot of plants is great. Just somewhere quiet in general. I don’t know why farm came to mind.”

“That’s cute,” Rey said.

“What about you?” He asked.

“What about me?”

“If you didn’t have all this going on, what would you do?” There was an odd look on her face and Ben wondered if he had made a mistake in asking.

“I used to imagine having a family,” She sighed, “when I was a little kid. And my parents were alive, I used to imagine I would have a really nice wedding. Nothing big—but like—nice. I also wanted a kids because I was an only child and alone all the time and I thought one day, I’ll make sure that I have people that can keep me from being lonely and I can stop from being lonely. I gave that up a while ago, though. It was a stupid dream,”

“I don’t think it’s stupid,” He said.

“It really doesn’t matter,” She laughed a little, low and hollow, obviously trying to mask her discomfort. “It’s not going to happen,” He didn’t say anything, because he could see that she was trying to move away from the conversation. He still hated it though, hated it. “If none of this was going on, I would probably go and look for someone that was important to me that I lost. He was sort of like, my second dad. I’d like to think that he’s still out there, somewhere. He was really the only other person besides you that’s been nice to me in a long time.”

“Mind me asking what happened?”

“There wasn’t enough life support on the ship for two people to make it off planet, and he was hurt. I put him on the ship and let a droid fly it. He wasn’t happy with me at all. Can’t say that I blame him though,”

“That sounds really brave,”

“I nearly died, after.” She said. “That was like—not my first real brush with death, but the one I remembered the most. I broke my arm and two ribs that day, got shot a lot.”

“And yet you’re still here,” He said.

“I’m still here,” She said.

“I’m glad, I don’t think anyone would’ve given me the chance, the way that you have.” There was another round of silence, and she just stared at him. She was at a loss for words, he could tell. Her brain was working in overdrive.

“I’m not so kind to monsters, something told me that you weren’t a monster.” Ben wondered how she could say that, when he had been calling himself a monster all his life. Or rather, Snoke had been calling him a monster all of his life and Ben just believed it.

“You’re a good judge of character,”

“That happens when you’ve spent time with so many bad people, you start to appreciate the good ones a lot more. It’s so much easier to assume everyone is bad, but—part of me just thinks that I couldn’t keep going if I assumed that. So I started trying to pick the good traits out. Trying to make sure that I didn’t use the same level of cruelty on every bounty.”

Ben bit his lip. He didn’t know what to think of Rey. Then he asked it. “Are we friends?”

__

Rey wasn’t sure what to make of Ben most days, he just went from being annoying as all get out to being sweet. Rey wasn’t sure what to think of it, wasn’t sure if she liked it or she was annoyed by it or she felt like she didn’t deserve it. _Are we friends?_ Echoed in her head for a minute, and she became aware of just how little she ever interacted with people.

Of how little she knew about this sort of thing.

Friends.

Friends trusted each other. Friends told each other things they didn’t tell just anyone. They kept each other’s secrets. They wanted the best for one another. “Do you want to be?” She hated how fragile her voice sounded just then.

It was awful.

“Yeah,”

“Then sure,” She said. “We can be friends,”


	9. The Road to Hell is Paved in Good Intentions

It was always late at night when Ben would get glimpses of Rey without her helmet on, she tried to keep her helmet on most of the time. But when she did take it off, something was different between the two of them. There was a silent understanding there, that if one of them needed to other, they would be there. It was something that Ben wasn’t sure he would ever get used to, especially after spending so long thinking that no one would ever take the time of day to trust him or to protect him. And Rey protected him.

Ben wasn’t sure why, sometimes, when the two of them would get into these awful situations he was sure there was no way out of. It would be easier for her to just give him up, but she didn’t. She didn’t give him up. Why? It was one of the late nights when she had her helmet off and was sipping some caf that this question kept coming up in his mind, and he wanted to ask it, but he didn’t.

He couldn’t.

So he asked something else.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Technically you just did,”

“Something else,” He asked her, slightly rolling his eyes. It reminded him of a joke his father would tell. “What made you become a bounty hunter?” She stiffened under the low light of the cockpit, keeping her eyes out on space the entire time. “Of course, you don’t have to tell me that—sorry that I asked.”

“It seemed like the logical thing to do,” She said, it was as vague as possible. “When you have so much anger in you that all you’re good for is fighting. Why not? You know what I mean?” He did.

“I don’t think that’s all you’re good for,”

“Oh, really?”

“I think you’re a good friend, and you’re definitely good with engineering and fixing things as well—” He stopped when he saw her gripping her caf more. Something told him he was irritating her, or was this something else?

“Go to bed, Ben.”

“Did I say something wrong?” She was silent after that.

He went to bed after that.

__

Rey wasn’t sure what to do when she was around Ben. There was this weird sort of tension between the two of them that Rey had never really felt between her and anyone else, that’s probably because the only people that had seen her real face before were either dead or missing. He was so sweet and complementary, and Rey didn’t know what to do or how to act when she was around him. She sat up, awake, not really knowing where to go or what to do next.

That’s when she got a message. Not from the Resistance or the First Order, but from someone she didn’t think that she would ever hear from again. It was a simple transmission. Only three sentences. 

_Rey, this is Han Solo. I know you have my son. Respond, please._

Out of some sort of gut reaction, Rey places her helmet back on. She plays the transmission, once, twice, three times. Then she takes her ship out of autopilot and goes into hyperspace. She wasn’t sure if it was the caf that was making her paranoid or the lack of sleep, maybe it was a mix of sleep. One thing she knew was, she told Ben that she wasn’t taking him back to the Resistance, and she always kept a promise. She would not be taking him some place where people could hurt him—and even though Rey trusted Han Solo more than Leia Organa—he was still tied to the General.

Rey wasn’t going to let the old smuggler see him. Ben got up again and rounded the corner after they got out of hyperspace. “What was that?” He asked.

“Nothing,” Rey said.

“You’re lying to me,”

“I thought I told you not to use the Force to go inside my head,”

“It doesn’t take the Force to be able to tell when someone’s lying to you, Rey. So tell me what’s wrong.”

“It doesn’t concern you,”

“I am the other person on this ship, and the reason why you’re in so much danger lately. So tell me what’s wrong? We can work on it together,” He insisted. Rey clenched her fists. Why did he have to talk so much?

“Listen—Ben, if you want me to keep you safe, it’s in your best interest that you don’t know. So stop fucking asking and go back to bed.” That came out harsher than she intended it to, but the damage was already done, and she could see the hurt on his face. She turned back around and he left. “Fuck,”

__

“We’re going to Sorgan,” Rey said as soon as Ben entered the pilot’s bay in the morning, “It’s a good place to lay low.”

“Uh—are you sure about that?” She had her helmet on and cocked her head to the side.

“What?”

“It’s just—the first Mandalorian—didn’t he fight the Empire there?”

“First of all, he wasn’t the first Mandalorian. Definitely not, and second of all, that was before your mother had even conceived you. I doubt we would have any problems there right now.”

“It’s just, the First Order isn’t very creative in it’s evil hiding spots, so they would probably be there too.”

“We’re looking for a specific person, so I think that’s worth the risk. Besides, the Order isn’t going to get you.”

“Okay,” He rolled his eyes, “whatever you say.”

“What was that?”

“What was what?”

“That eye roll,” She said. “I don’t know why you’re suddenly acting like a brat, again. But it’s really getting on my nerves if I’m being honest.”

“You wonder why I’m acting like a brat?”

“Yeah,”

“I don’t appreciate getting yelled at like that, Rey. I get that you’re stressed, but I’ve been trying really fucking hard to be helpful and it’s not cute.”

There was a moment of silence between the two of them before Rey said, “Right. Okay. I’m sorry about last night, Ben.”

“Okay then,”

“I’ll try not to do it again,”

“Do or do not, there is no try.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Something an old master said to me,”

“Mhm,” Rey said, “we’re still going to Sorgan. End of story.”

“Okay then,” He said, “Sorgan it is.”


	10. everything in my power not to lose you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> pt 2 of the sorgan chapter

Dyn had told Rey about Cara Dune and Omera a lot. It was one of the things that Rey loved to hear about when the two of them went on missions together. She never thought that she would be looking for help from the two of these women—especially when she had never met either of them. “Are you going to tell me who we’re looking for?” Ben asked as soon as they landed.

Rey put her helmet on and moved to the weapon’s bay to get a few blasters. _You can never be too careful, kid. You don’t know what you’re going to run into._ “I asked you a question, are you just going to ignore me?”

“Listen, I know that you have a lot of anxiety right now, but I’m thinking. Just give me a moment,” She told him, and then started walking to get off the ship, Ben followed her. That’s when she told him, “Omera and Cara Dune.”

“Never heard of them,”

“They’re friends of one of my friends,”

“You have friends?”

“There’s a lot that you don’t know about me, Ben.”

“I guess that’s so,” He sighed. Rey was pretty sure that he wanted to say something else to her, but he didn’t. Sorgan was a beautiful planet, green and peaceful looking. But Ben had learned not to let appearances fool him, so he was still on edge as they started to walk.

“Are you still mad at me?” It was something that Ben never would’ve expected Rey to ask.

“What?”

“Are you still mad at me for the other day? I just want to know in case there’s something I can do.”

“Rey—”

“Because I know that you’re trying to be helpful and I do appreciate that—It’s just, I’ve been alone for so much of my life, going from that to having someone constantly with you is hard. Really hard.”

“I’m not mad at you for earlier, okay? Not anymore. I just—I don’t want something to happen that ends up with you injured again, I really didn’t like it the last time that happened, I don’t want it to happen again. And if the Order is here—”

“I’ll be fine.” Rey told him. “I get injured all the time, comes with being a bounty hunter.”

“I guess that it does,” Ben sighed, “doesn’t mean that I’m not going to worry about you or stop wanting to know that you’re safe.” Rey went silent after that, because what was she supposed to say? She just trudged on forward, not sure what she was looking for exactly, but knowing that the village that Dyn had talked about was somewhere around the area.

When they found the village, Rey had to stop in her tracks. “Are you okay?” She nodded.

“Give me a second,” She closed her eyes inside of the helmet, and took a deep breath in. “I just wasn’t expecting it to look like that,” To look like the rural part of her outer village, where her actual father would take her to play and she could explore and be a child. It was like this place had captured that almost exactly, and Rey was about to walk into a trap of memories that she really didn’t want to get into.

“Like a rural village?”

“Don’t question it.” Ben nodded, and Rey crouched down, taking out her binoculars and looking through them to scope out the perimeter. Once she was sure that there was no one there that would come for them, she started walk down the road. “Stay close to me, please.”

“Okay,” Part of Rey wondered if it was stupid to come here. She wondered if Omera and Cara would help her, or if they were even here anymore. _If they aren’t, you can still lay low with Ben until you can find a way to get as far away from the Order and the Resistance. Then you can relax._ Finally, they made it to the village. Over the bridge of the irrigation system. There were kids around.

One of them said, “I thought there was only one Mandalorian.” That was something that caught Rey by surprise, but she shook it off as she heard some murmuring and another kid ran off. It took a second before she heard a blaster activate behind the two them. Ben tensed next to her.

“Y’all two like to tell me what you’re doing here before I have to kill you?”

“I’m looking for Cara Dune,” She said, her voice level. “I’m Rey. A friend of Dyn Jarren’s.”

__

Rey’s first impression of Cara Dune was her holding a gun to her and Ben, and from what Dyn had told her, that was extremely in character. As soon as Rey told her who she was, the gun was lowered and she was greeted with a hug that she totally did not ask for from the older assassin. “Rey! It’s so nice to finally meet you.”

“You know about me,” The older woman’s lips turned into a hard line.

“Long story, I’ll tell you about it later. Who’s this?”

“That’s Ben Solo,”

“A bounty?” Cara glanced at his force cuffs.

“A friend,” Rey said, “we need to stay low. And I need anti tracking tech, is Omera still here? Dyn told me that both of you were really good with that kind of stuff.”

“Of course,” Cara nodded, “and Omera’s still here. She’s dealing with her grandkids right now, so you can talk to her later. But uh—we have two available huts—”

“Ben will be sleeping with me so that won’t be necessary,” Rey said before Ben could say anything. “But thank you, Cara. For your hospitality.”

“Wasn’t always like that, more Omera’s department if you ask me.” She looked to Ben. “She take good care of you?”

“Uh—yes,”

“Good. Good. Lighten up, kid. No one here wants to hurt you,”

Rey wished that she knew it could stay that way.

__

When Leia contacted Han, he thought that he might be dreaming. The two of them had left on bad terms, very bad terms. The ones where they accused each other for being the reason that their son turned and swore that they would never talk to each other again. Yet here was a message from Leia, and it seemed urgent. So here he was, responding to it. “I almost got him back.” She sounded like she had been crying herself to sleep every day for the past month and it broke Han’s heart.

“What?”

“Our son,” She took in a deep breath, and Han could just imagine what she looked like over the comms, “I almost got him back. I ordered a bounty hunter—to bring him back alive—because I thought with time, ya know, we could convince him to come back. We didn’t have the money though, we couldn’t afford her and now he’s gone and I don’t know if he’s back with the Order or if he’s even still alive right now and I just can’t live with myself—”

“Leia,” Han interrupted her, “who did you hire?”

“A Mandalorian,” She told him.

“Let me guess, her name is Rey.”

“You know her?”

“Of course, I know her. She’s pretty famous in the bounty hunter community,” One use where Leia would agree that Han’s criminal contacts would come in handy. “And I happened to work a lot of jobs with her back in the day. She wouldn’t kill our son, and—maybe she hasn’t returned him to the First Order.”

“Are you sure of this?” There was a glimmer of hope in the General’s voice.

“Yes, Rey has a code. If she thinks that the bounty used to be in the hands of an abuser, she won’t bring them back. Which might be why she’s running with him still, keeping him out of the hands of the Resistance and the Order.”

“We are not the abusers in the situation, Han. I just want my son back,”

“Listen, I’ll try and track her down. Okay? Right now just call off anyone else that would seem threatening—focus on Snoke and General Hux, I’ll focus on our son.”

“Okay,” She must’ve been tired because she didn’t argue at all. “And Han?”

“Yes, princess?”

“I love you,”

“I know.”

__

_Not everyone is free of sin._

_After Rey and Dyn parted ways that one fatal day, Rey lost the one thing that she needed the most at the time._

_Guidance._

_It was back to being alone, which she hadn’t been in such a long time. The thought was nauseating. Rey had to get work, so she did the only thing that she could do. She joined the Bounty Hunter’s league, and when she did, something happened. All of that anger that had been built up in her through the years, the anger that was kept in check while Dyn was there to give her guidance and love came out._

_And she enjoyed it._

_That was, until Han Solo came along._

__

Ben had no idea what was going on. He had so many questions, but he knew that he couldn’t ask them right now. So, he held his tongue as an older woman named Omera handed him a cup of broth. She was going to hand one to Rey, but she said, “I’m not hungry.”

“I’ll keep the pot warm so you can eat later,” Omera gave her a kind smile and Ben could feel Rey bristle. Something was going on with Rey that he was missing, and he had no idea what it was. Rey turned to Cara and cocked her head to the side.

“You told me that you know of me, Dyn never visited you while—” Was she getting emotional? Her voice broke off before she continued. “How do you know about me?”

“Dyn was here just a year ago, told me about you then.”

Silence.

Omera paused, looking from Rey to Ben and then back to Rey. She gave her a look of sympathy and then mumbled something about having to go talk to her grandchildren, leaving the hut. “Rey, are you okay?” She didn’t answer, taking in a sharp breath that Ben could hear through the helmet.

“A year ago,”

“Yes,”

“Okay.” She said. “Thanks for telling me that—uh. Sorry, anyway. Thank you, Cara. Really.” She got up and started to leave the hut, “I’m going to take a walk.”

“I can come with you,”

“No, Ben. I just need to go alone, for a few minutes. I’ll be right back.”

“Um, okay.”

“Can you show him where we’ll be sleeping?”

“Yeah, sure kid.”

“Okay. I’ll be back.”

__

_Han Solo was the type of man you heard about in bed time stories, in stories that kids told each other to keep hope alive. He was legendary, as a war hero, as a smuggler, as a pilot. Rey never thought that she would actually come across him, but it seemed that he had reverted back to his criminal roots, and one day, she got offered a fairly hefty fine to track him down and kill him._

_It turned out that she didn’t kill him._

_He was a persuasive man, “The person you’re working for, do you know why he wants me dead?”_

_“You’ve stolen from a lot of people, I can only imagine.”_

_“So you don’t.” Han told her. “Listen, kid. You’re probably a kid, sound like you’re my son’s age. Anyways—this man that you’re working for, he stole artifacts from an ancient tribe of people. I stole them and I’m going to give them back.”_

_“You? You’re going to return these artifacts to these people? Don’t you smuggle and steal things for a living?”_

_“That’s a little unfair,” Han shrugged, “but listen—I had enough left over from my last job. I don’t need it.” Rey still didn’t put her blaster down._

_“I want to see proof that you’re taking these back to where it belongs,”_

_“Then come with me.”_

_She did._

__

Rey came back a few hours later, entering the hut that she and Ben were going to sleep in and closing the door behind her. Ben had been pacing for the past few hours, she could tell. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Clearing my head,” Rey said slowly, she wasn’t sure exactly how to tell him everything that was going on. “Sorry. I—” She sighed and saw his eyes soften.

“Hey, are you okay?” Rey took her helmet off and set it down on the floor next to her, in the next moment she embraced him, burrowing her face into his chest. She couldn’t look at him. “Okay, you’re not okay. Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not yet,” She was trying so hard not to cry that her body was shivering a little. Ben embraced her back and it was warm and comfortable and Rey was scared because of how safe that she felt. “I’m just tired,”

“Okay, I can take the floo—”

“Can we uh—share? Is that okay with you?”

“Of course,” Ben said softly, “Of course.” He laid down and made sure there was enough room for Rey, which was barely enough. Rey took her armor off and moved so that she fit into the small space left. She made sure that the blanket was over her head, in case someone walked in. It didn’t take very long for her to fall asleep after that.

Ben didn’t sleep immediately, though. He stayed awake, cherishing this small moment that he had with her.

__

Time seemed to pass by slower on Sorgan. Rey woke up twice during the night with nightmares, and wondered why the sun hadn’t come up yet. “Are you okay?” Ben asked her the second time that she got up.

“I feel like we should be out of here already,” She said. Ben stared at her for a long time before he spoke.

“There’s something you’re not telling me. A lot of things—but why are you so concerned with tracking and all of that?” Rey bit her tongue.

“It’s still late, we should try to sleep.”

“Rey, I deserve to know.” She bit her llip and then looked back up to him.

“Because your father tracked us, Han Solo. He sent a message to the ship, saying he knows that you’re on it. I didn’t speak to him and I don’t plan on negotiating with him at all.” She said. She felt like she was babbling.

“He’d probably swindle you out of a deal.” Ben tried to joke, hollowly.

“I wouldn’t trade you for money,” She tried to decipher what the expression on Ben’s face was, but she was never good at reading emotions. She felt like she had said too much when she told him that, and her cheeks pinked as she focused on a spot on his sweater, trying to calm herself down. “I wouldn’t trade you for money, I like having you on the ship. So—I’m not giving you up unless you make that choice yourself, and if you don’t want to, I won’t let anything happen to you. I won’t let anyone hurt you,” She said. She glanced up, searching his eyes. “I promise,”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> pt 3 of the sorgan chapter

Ben was mad at Rey for about ten seconds before he thought about what she said. _I wouldn’t trade you for money._ Under there, something told him that she meant, _I don’t want to lose you._ Maybe he was jumping to conclusions, but that was enough for him to say, “Okay, I get it.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“You aren’t just saying that?”

“No, I’m not just saying that. But you have to be honest with me from now on, okay? We’re supposed to be a team and a team can’t function unless there’s transparency from one another.”

Rey nodded, “Okay,” she said.

“Okay,”

_

Rey wasn’t sure why she felt so relieved when Ben didn’t get mad at her, but she did. With a sigh, he sat down next to her and the two of them just sat there, silent for a while. Eventually, he broke the ice. “So, when are we going to leave Sorgan?”

“Not for a little bit,” Rey admitted, “I think that we need to let things calm down. Relax. It would do the both of us good.”

Ben chuckled a little and Rey raised an eyebrow, “Do you even know how to relax?” With that, Rey went silent.

“You can relax,” Rey corrected herself.

“Rey,”

“What?” She asked, “You’re right and we both know it, I’ll work on the ship and then when the time comes, we can both leave.”

“Or you could relax and when we have to work on the ship, we work together.”

“I don’t know the first thing about relaxing,”

“Well, the first thing that you should know,” Ben started, “is that you don’t have to do anything when you relax. Just – exist.”

“So, like – sleeping. That sounds incredibly boring.”

“It can actually be kind of nice,” He smirked and something in Rey started to feel a little more than uncomfortable, “You should try it some time.”

“I would love to,” Rey got up, “but for right now I’m going to have to take a raincheck, I actually need to talk to Omera and Cara about something,”

“Okay, do you want me to come with?”

“No, I’m good.” Rey told him.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” Rey told him, “I’m sure.” Ben nodded and told her to be safe, and then let her go.

__

Things between Ben and Rey had been weird between each other for the past few days. For the most part, Rey would make sure that Ben was right by her side because was paranoid and didn’t want him to get taken. Other times, when they were separated and helping the village people with chores and things, they’d get asked about each other. “What’s the Mandalorian like?” One of the kids asked Ben once, “she looks cool!”

“She’s amazing,” Ben would tell them, “like seriously. The coolest person ever.” Kids seemed to be really attracted to Ben, wanting him to tell them stories and trying to climb all over him. He was always really tentative, approaching them, but it seemed like most people here didn’t care. They were glad to have distractions for their children.

It was a good distraction for him too. Rey and him would sleep in the same bed at night, Rey would never look at him when they got into bed together. It was hard not to hear what she was thinking, even after Ben tried so hard not to look into her mind. Every time she touched him there was some sort of deliberation there, as to if she should be doing this or not. Ben wished that he could ease her mind, but he knew that there wasn’t much that he could do in that area.

Everything seemed to be going fine, until Rey just stopped talking. Ben had no idea what it was about, but she wasn’t sleeping either. He thought that they had gone over this, the not keeping secrets part, letting each other in, even if it was hard. He tried to give her room, though. He wasn’t the best at emotions so he shouldn’t expect her to be either. Still – he wanted to know what was wrong so that he could help.

And then Cara Dune pulled him aside. He wasn’t sure what was going on at first, if he had done something that would piss her off, but it didn’t seem that way at all. She pulled her into the hut that they had talked in a few days prior and said, “Sorry to pull you out of the blue like that, but I needed to ask you something.”

“O-okay,”

“Relax,” She said, “I needed to ask if you know if Rey’s okay.”

Ben fell silent for a second, “Um. I’m not sure. She’s been a lot quieter than usual and it’s pretty hard to get anything out of her, not that it’s ever been easy to get anything out of her.”

The older woman nodded, “That’s what I thought. I guess that is sort of mine and Omera’s fault,”

“What happened?” Ben asked before he could stop himself. “Because if I’m being honest, I have no idea what’s going on right now.”

“It’s about Dyn Jarren.” Cara said. “We told her that he’s alive, she didn’t know. She came back several times asking us if we knew anything more about him, and we didn’t, and I’m afraid we’ve disappointed her.” She sighed. “I think that if you want more information, you’re going to have to ask her.”

Ben nodded, that was probably for the best. Cara was about to leave the hut when she turned around and ask, “Oh by the way – have you seen Rey without her mask?” Ben froze. How could she have possibly known that?

“No,” Ben lied.

“Right,” Cara said, “just wondering. Okay, kid. See you in a bit, gonna go take a walk around the perimeter.”

“Right.”

__

It was late at night again and Rey hadn’t eaten, Ben put some soup right in front of her and sat down on the bed. “You need to eat.” He told her.

“Not hungry,” That was the first he had heard from her all week.

“Eat anyways,” Ben told her, “it’s not good to skip meals.” He watched as she took off her helmet with some irritation and started gingerly toying with her soup before she actually started eating. It didn’t take long before the soup was gone. He didn’t tell her _I told you so._

She put the bowl down and Ben finally asked her, “So, who is Dyn Jarren?”

“I already told you,”

“No,” Ben said, “not really. You didn’t tell me who he was to you.”

“The only other living person who’s seen my face,” Rey said. “I don’t want to talk about it right now, okay? Just let it go.” And for now, he did. Because even in that one sentence, there was enough information for Ben to know that he was someone that she trusted. Someone that was important to her. The two of them didn’t fall asleep that night. Rey sat with her helmet on, staring at the entrance, and Ben missed her presence right next to him.

As the sun came up, Rey stood. “There’s something wrong.”

“What do you mean?” He didn’t have the force with him, not with the cuffs. So, he had no idea what she was talking about.

“I think – that the First Order found us.”


	12. we do the right thing most of the time

“What do you mean?” Ben asked Rey. “What’s going on?” Rey got up from where she was and got closer to the door, looking outside. Then, Ben took off the cuff. That’s when he felt it, the surge of pain that went through his head. Snoke’s voice booming in his head again, but it was on three hundred times the volume. Accusing him of betrayal, talking about all the ways that he deserved to die.

“Ben!”

“ _He’s here,_ ” Ben told her. Rey put her helmet back on.

“We need to leave, now. Get these people out of harm’s way,”

“Right,” Ben struggled to put the force dampening cuff back on, but when he did it lessened the pounding in his head. “Right. Okay. I’ll go. I’ll go.” He got up, trying to forget the things that were inside his head. “We should tell Cara and Omera,”

“I don’t think we have time for that, we warn them and then we’re stuck here defending the village when we’re the problem in the first place. We shouldn’t be here at all.”

“What’s going on?” Ben turned to see Omera and Cara standing right behind them.

“Shit,” Rey muttered under her breath, she turned around. “The First Order is chasing us and we’re trying to prevent a slaughter from happening—so if you would kindly let us go that would be very nice.”

“You need help? We’ll defend you, this village has done that before.”

“Yeah, with Dyn’s help. I’m not really here to see parts of a village burn,” Rey said. “Seen it too many times as it is.”

“Rey,” Ben said, “if we run, we could get captured.”

“If we stay, we could get captured too.” He told her. “At least if we stay and we’re captured, I can die knowing that I did something good. That I protected women and children.” He was pretty sure that Rey was glaring at him from behind her helmet.

“Fine.” She said. “But you can just remember what I said about attachments dying horribly.” She brushed past his shoulder as she walked off in another direction.

“I’ll go talk to her,” Cara said.

“Right,” Omera said. Then she turned to Ben as the other woman left, “Your girlfriend’s going to be okay.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“Maybe not right now,” She sighed, “anyways. The kids know how to shoot, at least the older ones do. We have hiding spots for the younger kids, holes that we dug that can hold about five to six people. Can you help me get them all there?”

“Yeah,” He said, “I can.”

__

“What is going on with you right now?” Cara asked as Rey started walking away.

“I really don’t need the lecture; you’re certainly not my mother and you have no right to pretend to care about me.”

“The thing is, I’m not pretending. Dyn had a lot to say about you, and if he cares about you, I care. That’s just how things go, kid. Now, where are you going?”

“To get weapons from the ship,”

“I’ll follow you,”

“If you think that I was going to leave Ben behind, I’m not.”

“I never said that,”

“I’ve considered it enough, but he saved my life so I can’t do that.” Cara got quiet.

“He seems like a nice boy,” Rey was silent for a long time, walking through the grass fields towards the ship.

“Trust me, he’s annoying in his own right,” Rey said.

“And you care about him.”

“And I care about him,” Rey sighed, “a lot. That’s why I wanted to leave because if he gets hurt that’s on me.”

“You do realize that he’s a grown-ass adult, right? Probably older than you too.”

“Yeah, well that doesn’t mean shit. This is the reason that I don’t work with other people if they get hurt, I blame myself. That’s how it goes.”

“If they get hurt, it’s no one’s fault but whoever’s shooting at you. You can’t control that. I thought that Dyn would have taught you that by now.”

“He did. Doesn’t mean it stuck,”

“You sound so much like him.”

__

Three hours. Three hours is how long they had to prepare for the attack on the village. Rey had a plan, and Ben was part of it too. She gave him his lightsaber and told him that this was probably going to be bloody. And that they would need to have each other’s backs again. “Are you sure that you want to do this?”

“Yeah.” He said.

“Good,” Rey said. “If something happens to me, I want you to take my ship and run. If I get captured, you don’t come back for me. You get as far away from here as possible. You deserve to live, Ben. More than any of us do. Please, just promise me that.”

“Rey, you know that I can’t do that.”

“Please.” There was a tense moment of silence between them before Ben said anything.

“Fine.” He sighed, “But you have to promise me one thing as well.”

“What’s that?”

“If I get captured, you tell my mother and father that I’m sorry. For all the pain I’ve put them through. It’s better this way because I could never go home anyways. Don’t look for me either. Because if you do and you go through the First Order, you will get killed.”

“No guarantees,” Rey said, “and you’re not obligated to say anything to your parents. Not after all of the shit that Snoke put you through.” She started fiddling with one of her guns. “By the way, if I ever see that asshole in person I’m going to melt his face off with my flame gun.” Ben chuckled a little bit and Rey looked up to see him smile. Right now was not the right time for her heart to melt, but there was also a thought in her mind when she saw that. _This is what you’re fighting for. Keep him alive._

“Okay then,” Ben said, “well. Let’s get to it.”


	13. Down to the Minute

Thirty Minutes

“Are you sure that this is the best course of action?” Rey asked Cara. Cara nodded.

“I’ve defended this place before, kid. I know what’s going on.” Rey nodded and sighed, looking back at her options. This had to work, for her sanity.

“Okay, then. I trust you,” She told the woman.

“I trust you too, this is going to work.”

Omera smiled as Rey moved towards her, she and Ben caught each other’s eyes for a moment. “I’ll be okay,” He reassured her.

“If you need help you yell as loud as possible,” She told him, “I’ll come running.”

“The same goes for you,” He said, “be careful.”

“I will,”

__

Fifteen Minutes

Ben’s heart is beating like a caged bird in his chest. He knows that there’s a lot riding on this. People’s whole livelihoods are in this village, and suddenly he feels so much more nervous than he ever had before going into battle. Before, he went into battle to destroy things, but protecting something, ensuring that these people would live another day was a whole different story. “Hey,” Cara said, “it’s going to be okay, kid.”

“Do I really look that nervous?”

“It’s not that obvious,” She told him, “I’ve just been doing this long enough to know what to look for.” Ben nodded and looked at the sky. There was already a ship starting to poke through the atmosphere of the planet. This fight was going to be ugly, but there was a plan of escape if this didn’t work.

It was going to be okay.

__

Five Minutes

Rey knows that it’s selfish, but she can’t stop thinking about Ben.

She knows that she should be focused on what she was doing, but she wanted to know that he was okay.

She set up the rest of the traps, wired some smoke bombs to go off when stepped on, and sat and waited at the precipice of the village, knowing that the First Order would be coming soon. Her palms were sweating under her gloves, and she wished that she could claw her skin off.

She remembered when the raid on her village started, the war siren sounding and the smell of smoke in the air. You never really forgot what the smell of burning flesh was like after you smelled it. It would always be stuck to you afterwards.

The sound of one shrill scream could be heard in the distance, and then the sound of trees crashing and falling to the ground.

They were here.

__

_“One thing that you need to accept,” Djin said, “is that people die. And it’s not you fault.”_

__

Begin

_People die. People die. People die._ Rey wasn’t scared to die, that wasn’t the problem. It was watching other people around her die that really made her hate battle. It was easier when she could numb her feelings, but there were people here that she cared about, there were children here, and there was Ben. They had come so far since the beginning, and Rey wasn’t sure how she would feel if she lost him.

The beginning of the battle happened so fast that it was hard to keep track of everything.

They started from the ground first, they were lucky that it was such a small sect of the First Order that had come after them. The first round of storm troopers set off of small grenades about five miles away from the village, and then the next round comes and sets off the smoke bombs, the smoke is thick enough to disorient the AT-AT unit, and the shooting begins.

Rey had always been a good shot, but today she was even more lethal. She starts pecking off people as they come out of the forest, before they’re too close and she resorts to one of her other guns. Then she just starts shooting people down.

The first round of battle lasts for about ten minutes, and all of the sudden it gets quiet. That’s when Rey knows that something is wrong, and then the next AT-AT comes through, but this one is just a little bit bigger than the rest and Rey knows that she’s fucked, there’s no way to subdue this thing.

But it stops at the edge of the forest line, as if it’s surveying the bodies.

And then someone on a comm speaks.

__

Ben hears his voice from his station, and he knows that something awful is about to happen. “Attention, attention.” Hux says. It’s been a while since Ben has heard his voice, and he doesn’t want to hear it, ever again. Cara looks at him and watches as he disengages his lightsaber.

“Hey, what’s happening?”

“I think we all know what’s going to happen here.” His voice was chilling enough to make Ben want to throw up, especially now. “You are severely outgunned, and I have no qualms with burning all of your livelihood to the ground, and then finding each and every one of you and seeing to it that you are shot down like a rabid animal. But you, Mandalorian, I can tell that you don’t want that. You’ve gone through extraordinary lengths to make sure that this village is protected. I have a proposition for you, if you bring forth Kylo Ren I will make sure that no one else in this village gets hurt.”

Ben sat still for a second.

He knew what was going to happen, Rey was going to say no and there was going to be more bloodshed anyways.

Ben had a chance to do something about it, a chance to stop it. He started moving to where she was, Cara grabbed his arm. “What the hell are you doing?” She asked.

“If I go to them, no one else will get hurt.”

“If you go, they’ll take you and kill us all as well. I don’t know if you forgot this, but you’re the only fucking force user here, and Rey’s good at fighting, she is. But she needs you, what if she gets hurt? We don’t have anything here to heal her, just you. So what’s it going to be?”

__

“I don’t do deals with people I can’t see,” Rey shouted, “that just goes on principle. Also I don’t know if you’re going to keep to your word or not, I could give him to you and you just kill all of us anyway. It’s not like the First Order hasn’t done that before.” She had to think on her toes, if she knew anything correctly, the First Order would be getting ready for an air raid right now, and there was no Resistance to come running in and conveniently save them.

It was just her.

And these scared people who were holding guns on her behest.

She wasn’t going to let go of Ben Solo, not voluntarily.

No, they would have to kill her before they could take him. It seemed like they had no qualms doing that either, the AT-AT fired a shot, and one of the huts behind her exploded. “That was a warning shot,” The person on the comm said. “Now, Mandalorian, what’s it going to be?”

There were a lot of stupid things that Rey had done before, a lot of things that she thought would result in her death, and this was definitely one of them. She raised her gun, looking for the fault in the AT-AT, took a chance, and shot at the turret. The AT-AT’s blaster went up in smoke, and that’s when all hell broke loose.

__

It was becoming clearer and clearer that the only way they were going to win this was to take the leverage off the board, Ben started evacuating people as soon as Rey decided that she was going to start a war. Getting the children and people that could not fight out of the village and far enough into the woods that they would be safe. Omera and Cara turned out to be really good help, knowing when and where to go and looking out for him.

Ben had to cut a few stormtroopers down, but other than that they didn’t have that much trouble. Once he knew that everyone was safe, he turned around. “Where are you going?” Omera asked.

“I’m going back to help her,” He said.

“She’s not going to want you to do that,”

“I don’t care,” Ben said, “she’s not going to die on my behalf.” He left before anyone could tell him not to.

__

They held form really well for about an hour, and that’s when two clashing air raids came in. The Resistance had managed to find them, and Rey considered that a blessing in disguise, she could handle the Resistance trying to get Ben, what she couldn’t handle was the First Order and their vast amount of weapons by herself.

Ben ran to join her, and Rey couldn’t process it that well. Everything seemed to be happening in fast motion, but Rey got shot with a blaster bolt and blacked out before the end of the fight. She woke up on a ship that was not her own, in the medbay with a Wookie standing over her, and Ben nowhere in sight. It was clear that he was about to take her helmet off but Rey said, “Don’t you fucking dare.” And managed to get up before he could.

The wookie protested about her getting up. “Where’s Ben?” Rey asked, and then she realized where she was. She was on the Falcon. Han Solo rounded the corner.

“He got taken by the First Order, again.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey, sorry for such a short update. Just trying to get back into the groove of writing this. Hope you enjoy.

There were three things that Rey learned when she woke up. Han Solo had saved her ass, just barely. She had no idea where her ship and any of her other weapons were, and the First Order had taken Ben prisoner again. It was at that last one that Rey had tried her best to sit up.

“Woah there, kid. You need to lay down, you’re injured.”

Han Solo.

_Great._ “I’m fine,” She grumbled as she got up, the lights regulated, and she realized that her helmet was damaged. “Where’s my ship?” They were clearly on the Millennium Falcon; the ship was in much more of a disarray than Rey’s own ship.

“It’s in the ownership of the Resistance, right now.”

“What?”

“Relax, kid. You’re going to get your ship back, and no one’s going to mess with it, but your medbay wasn’t really stocked and I know you’d rather not have me fly it so—someone else did.”

“How considerate,”

“Hey,” Han said, “do I need to remind you that we saved your ass out there? Especially after some of the shit you pulled, I thought that you would be more grateful.” Rey knew that she was at the jeopardy of a Wookie and a man that she could barely trust, but at this point she didn’t care.

“I’m sorry Han, but I think by now, you would understand why I don’t have any respect for you or the General at all.” She wasn’t in the mood to fight, she was just stating facts at this point.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You think in all the time that Ben and I spent together, I didn’t ask him why he joined the Order in the first place? He told me everything, and that’s why we ran. I didn’t feel like turning him in to people who could jeopardize his wellbeing was in his best interest, and what can I say? I have morals,”

**

Ben was scared and cold and alone and woke up in a prison cell. He knew that there were several things in order that were coming from him. The punishment he was going to get was going to feel unlike any other, and he was pretty certain that he wouldn’t be able to survive it at this point. There was no one coming for him. He was going to die alone. He had always suspected that he would before, that he didn’t deserve to be in the warm arms of someone he loved when he died, but now it scared him more than anything. He wondered if Rey was alive. If she was okay. If Snoke also had her here and was torturing her. He hoped more than anything that she wasn’t here. “You know, if I were you, I’d be pissing your pants by now.” Ben’s eyes went to the corner of the room and there he saw him.

Hux.

“Why?” He asked. “Am I supposed to be afraid of you?” There was this sick smile on his face, and Ben knew that whatever he had planned wasn’t going to be good. In his head he started saying his goodbyes. To his mother, to his father. He wished that he could have done more to show them that he wasn’t a disappointment. He wished that they had loved him enough to not send him away.

“Oh,” Hux told him. “Trust me. You will be.”

He wished that he knew why his uncle thought that he should be killed.

Why he thought that he was a monster.

Was he really so awful that he was supposed to die like this?

Ben tried his best not to show fear in the face of death, “Do your worst.” Ben rolled his eyes. “It’s not like I haven’t been through this shit before.”

**

“You have morals?” Han laughed. “Did something change since the last time the two of us met?” The Wookie roared and both Rey and Han were silent. Chewbacca was right. Yelling at each other wasn’t going to help Ben. Rey bit the inside of her cheek and leaned back.

“I’m going to need my ship back,”

“I know,”

“Soon,”

“I know. There’s a process we have to go by, Leia wants to talk to you.”

“Well I don’t want to talk to her,” Rey said, “and why do we have to go through a process? The more time we waste, the more time Ben is stuck there, being tortured.”

“Kid, if you weren’t injured right now, I would be saying the same thing. I want more than anything to just go in there and blow the First Order to bits. But that’s not going to happen and that’s going to get both of us killed, we need a plan and Leia wants to talk to you about everything. About why you took him. About why you were guarding him,”

“Can’t you just tell her what I said?”

“She’s going to want to go into more detail with you,” Han told her. Rey sighed, knowing that she wasn’t going to like this. “That way we can work out a plan and you can heal a little before we go in there and get him.”

“Fuck plans,”

“I can see that I’m not going to have a reasonable discussion with you right now, so I’m going to let you rest and then when we get there, you can talk to Leia.” Rey closed her eyes, knowing that she wasn’t going to like what happened next. She kept thinking about Ben. About how she failed to protect him. He was falling back into the clutches of Snoke.

He was going to be tortured again.

She owed it to him to find him. To bring him home. Staying on this ship and sulking in pain was not an option. Rey tried to get up again but nearly screamed in pain. Every part of her abdomen hurt.

She hissed and laid back down. At some point, she passed out.


End file.
